Taj plans major expansion

During the first four months of current fiscal, the company recorded a four per cent fall in turnover at Rs 178 crore, while occupancy rates also dropped from 54 per cent to 51 per cent.

As a strategic move, the company has acquired a 10 percent stake in Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and would seek to acquire further stake as and when government disinvests.

Indian Hotels’ has embarked on an endeavour to benchmark itself against the best hotels globally, Tata said adding that an international agency had been engaged for thepurpose.

The Taj group of hotels would be benchmarked in terms of quality, service, costs and project execution, he added. The company has already reorganised itself to reflect the five businesses it operates in, luxury, business, leisure, air catering and international operations, with separate management for each.

As part of restructuring, the company had offered forsale the hotels in New York, London and Chicago. But, it had later decided to retain and upgrade the london hotel, he said. The profit from sale proceeds of the New York and Chicago businesses would be deployed towards reducing the debt burden of the company’s highly leverged international operations.