Mahindra Holidays Looks To Open 1st Property Under 'Mahindra Signature Resorts' By FY27-End

Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd expects to open the first property under its luxury leisure hospitality brand 'Mahindra Signature Resorts' in the later part of FY27, according to its Managing Director & CEO Manoj Bhat.

The company, which last week announced plans to enter the luxury leisure hospitality segment, has earmarked an investment of ₹1,000 crore for the same.

With its foray into the leisure hospitality segment, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd (MHRIL) has increased its total number of targeted rooms to 12,000 by FY30, across the new and existing vacation ownership businesses, from the previously announced 10,000 keys.

"The first location will be at Theog in Himachal Pradesh, and then we are looking at two to three priority regions. One is north India...then we are looking at one or two destinations in the south and a couple of destinations in Maharashtra right now," Bhat told PTI.

He was responding to a query on the expansion plans for Mahindra Signature Resorts.

"The first resort will be about 150 keys," Bhat said, adding that "we are not going to be in urban locations. We are going to be in leisure locations (with Mahindra Signature Resorts)".

Asked when the first property would become operational, Bhat said, "This new brand is not going to be operational this year. It will happen sometime towards the latter part of next (fiscal) year. We are actually constructing the resort as we speak." On the rationale behind MHRIL's foray into leisure hospitality, he said, "In the broader leisure space, the vacation ownership, what we do today, is only 8 per cent of the market...92% of the market is the conventional hotel business, and we don't have a presence there at all." In order to address it, the company decided to launch Mahindra Signature Resorts, targeting affluent families, providing experience-led activities with properties inspired by local character and narratives.

Stating that trends suggest that 56% of people book a week before travel, Bhat said, "That's something which means that we need to have a product offering which enables people to do that." Unlike the vacation ownership business of Club Mahindra, which has been rebranded as Club M, he said the properties under Mahindra Signature Resorts will be an "open model, and anybody can experience the resorts".

"In this brand, we will do 2,000 keys by FY30, above the 10,000 keys (that MHRIL had earlier announced). So the total will be 12,000 keys," Bhat noted.

On how much incremental revenue is expected from the new foray, Bhat did not share a specific number but said in the decade from FY20 to FY30, MHRIL is targeting an overall three-fold increase in the number of rooms and revenue and a four-times increase in PAT for the India business.