Lemon Tree arm in talks with international luxury brands

Carnation Hotels, promoted by Rattan Keswani, an old Oberoi Group hand, and Lemon Tree Hotels, is in talks with international luxury hotel brands to manage the latter’s operations in India.
Under the plan, Carnation would enter into brand deals with hotel asset owners on behalf of these brands. It will also take up management contracts to manage the day-to-day affairs at these hotels based on the brand owner’s quality standards.

Rattan Keswani, co-promoter and managing director, Carnation, said, “Two international luxury brands wish to engage our company as a JV partner to operate their hotels in the region.”
Carnation was set up as part of Lemon Tree’s business restructuring to separate hotel asset ownership and management.

It would manage hotels with Lemon Tree brands — Lemon Tree Premier, Lemon Tree or Red Fox – or under separate brands that are being created.

“For hotels that don’t fit in, we are creating a new brand portfolio in a month for the upscale and mid-scale segments,” said Keswani.
Carnation recently signed its first management contract for a resort in Himachal Pradesh and is in negotiations with 10 other owners / projects for management contracts.

“We signed our first resort last week and hope to close two more in the next fortnight. We hope to have over 2,500 rooms under management within the next 18 months. The overall plan is to manage over 4,000 guest rooms by 2015,” said Keswani adding the company would consider taking equity positions in hotel properties on a case-to-case basis.

Carnation has also got on board hospitality professionals across functions from chains like Four Seasons, Alila, Taj, Starwood, InterContinental and Marriott.

“They will assist and manage the hotels within the brands assigned. And should the luxury brand JVs fructify, we shall enhance the team as needed,” said Keswani.

He said the company will bring the best expertise between luxury and mid-scale under one roof.

“The Indian customer shall be our focus, different from other international and domestic players. We will leverage expertise to relate luxury with economies/efficiencies thereby delivering the best return on capital employed. We have done that for owned hotels under the various Lemon Tree brands and should be able to deliver similar results for other owners as well,” he said.