Five Ista hotels in India are to be rebranded as Hyatts following an agreement between the American hotel group and IHHR Hospitality Private Limited.
Under the agreement, the fully operational Ista hotels will become the Hyatt Bangalore, Hyatt Pune, Hyatt Hyderabad, Hyatt Ahmedabad and Hyatt Amritsar, with the rebranding expected to be completed by March next year.
“As a company we see a perfect fit with IHHR’s forward-thinking philosophy and vision,” said Ratnesh Verma, senior vice president of real estate and development for Hyatt Hotels & Resorts in Asia-Pacific. “It is our constant endeavour to create preference for our brand by having hotels in markets where our customers are travellling. This opportunity allows Hyatt to further consolidate its distribution in India and offer its customers a choice in new markets.”
The rebranding will mean that the hotels become part of the Hyatt Gold Passport Loyalty programme and also incorporate other aspects of the group's business. A spokesperson said that there are currently no plans to refurbish the hotels.
The addition of these hotels brings Hyatt’s portfolio to 15 business and resort hotels in India. It also has more than 50 Hyatt-branded hotels under development in the country, which are expected to add more than 12,000 rooms – part of an ambitious India expansion strategy announced in January (see here).
Later this year it will open hotels in Hampi, a Unesco heritage site in central India, and then a hotel in the country’s seventh-largest city Pune. In the next six months, three more Hyatt hotels will open in the Dehli satellite Gurgaon, and in Ludhiana and Raipur.
For more information, visit www.hyatt.com
Nicholas Olczak
