“It’s not India’s decade, it’s India’s century,” Bob Sternfeld, CEO of McKenzie and Company said recently. Since the country became the most populous nation in the world – eclipsing China in 2022 – with its GDP forecast to supersede Japan’s in the next decade, the world of business has been asking how to get in on the act. “We’ll surpass Japan in the next three years,” affirms Mandeep Lamba, president & CEO of Mumbai-based hospitality consultancy HVS Anarock.
For Lamba, factors such as India’s rapidly growing middle class and super rich, plus the fact that it is one of the youngest populations in the world, all contribute to its allure for the hospitality industry. “In 2025 we will become the second largest startup ecosystem in the world with 100,000 Indian startups,” he notes. “We have 250 Indian startups in the unicorn club and some $150- $200 billion investment that's coming up in the startup world.”
India rules the skies
Hospitality professionals can also take heart from the fact that India is set to “rule the skies”, with the country due to become the third largest aviation market globally by next year. “India recently placed the largest order for aircraft in the history of aviation, with a couple of airlines ordering close to 1,100 aircraft. The infrastructure is growing too,” Lamba says. With India in line to get its first bullet train by 2027, getting in and out of its key destinations has never been easier.
Adds Miraj Patel, chairman of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA): “The amount of startups, textile markets, diamond hubs, everything that's happening there construction wise is a amazing. The bullet train - we've seen this entire project, and the construction growth is fast; what we think would take about maybe seven, eight years is taking them three to four years.” He adds: “And so that's allowed a lot of land to open up and a lot of opportunities of growth in a lot of these markets.”
Real estate growth
On the real estate front, Lamba notes that India’s office space – which amounted to around 600 million sq ft in 2019 – is set to reach 1 billion sq ft by 2030. Meanwhile, on the hospitality front, the country is expected to add “about 60,000 more rooms in the next five years”, as it attempts to narrow the enormous supply gap with its world peers. “Currently we have 1.7 billion domestic tourist visits and just under 10 million foreign tourist arrivals, in comparison with the 170,000 keys that we have in India,” he notes. “In the US, just Manhattan alone has 100,000 keys. China has 2.3 million keys. The US has 5.3 million keys and the city of Beijing has more rooms than all of India put together.” He adds: “What happened in China 15 years ago is really what is going to happen in India.”
Notes Patel: “Many of our members are asking how they can get in on developing hotels in India. We've actually had several meetings with the government as well, because it plays a major role in easing things when it comes to visa programmes and development – even if it still takes a long time to develop anything there.”
Adds Lamba: “Hotel room development is actually getting faster - it's all moving in the right direction. There is a huge amount of global interest coming into India outside of hotels as well, a lot of foreign direct investment in general. Our stock markets are absolutely on a roll.” Referencing India’s recent general election, he suggests that the result was not entirely in line with market predictions but that nevertheless, the outcome would deliver “continuity”, as Modi’s third term as Prime Minister was confirmed. He concludes: “There's a lot of strength in this stability and it's a very, very robust democracy. So, I think a lot of this is just falling into place.”