Special Report     

Published: June 15, 2023
Updated: June 15, 2023

Pride Hotels group

All set to hit its first century by 2030

Since its inception over three decades ago, the Pride hotel group has gone from strength to strength and now boasts of 56 top-of-the-line hotel assets across the country. The group’s driving force, chartered accountant-turned-entrepreneur S.P. Jain, is determined to see is turnover cross the Rs 500-crore mark in the next three years and the group’s properties cross the ‘century’ mark by 2030. It’s not about expansion alone for Mr Jain – quality services, world-class facilities and eco-friendly products are an obsession for him. He has fast-tracked the group’s expansion with a winning strategy of taking over half-built properties and turning them into attractive luxurious five-star hotels. Besides, the group’s four categories of hotels satisfy the requirements of the widest possible range of business visitors.

Mumbai-headquartered Pride Hotels group, which has emerged as one of the fastest-growing hotel chains in the country, has made rapid strides since inception in 1988, when a far-sighted, ambitious and dynamic young chartered accountant-turned-management expert made a foray into the hospitality sector by launching the group’s first five-star hotel in the Shivajinagar area of Pune. Over the following 34 years, the group has made its presence felt in as many as 56 first-rate locations across India, boasting over 5390 rooms, 72+ restaurants, and 152 banquet and conference halls. In fact, the high-octane Mr Jain has on average floated one new hotel every eight months! This rapid-fire expansion has catapulted the Pride group into the coveted league of the top five hotel chains in the country.

FOCUS ON QUALITY

Mr Jain adds, “Our focus is not just on expansion but also on the quality of our products and services. Keeping sustainable and responsible tourism in mind, a majority of the products used in our resorts and hotel properties are ecofriendly. Natural and recyclable materials are used wherever possible, like biodegrable and environment-friendly packaging. We have installed heat pumps in all our hotels, and the lighting in all our properties is LED-based. Green power is drawn from windmills and solar farms, while waste water is treated and reused in the garden and air-conditioning cooling towers.”

What made a chartered accountant-cum-management expert, engaged in the world of numbers and dull, head-breaking management theories make a foray into the exciting five-star hotel scene? While advising various entrepreneurs on the problems faced in different industries, Mr Jain realized that there were bright prospects for the hospitality sector in India. With an aptitude for going deep into a chosen subject, he studied the hospitality industry and its future prospects. After all, coming from an enterprising Marwari lineage, the entrepreneurial bug bit him and he decided to enter the hotel sector with not a backward glance to his work till then as a chartered accountant and management consultant.

HOW IT STARTED

His wife provided the initial impetus by getting him an old property in Pune owned by her father. Not one to leave such an opportunity go abegging, Mr Jain renovated and refurbished the property as a luxury hotel. That was the start towards his ambition to create a pan-India hotel chain, one that he aptly named ‘Pride’.

After Pune, he came across a property in Nagpur which was situated in a prime location opposite the Nagpur international airport. However, as it was designed in an oldfashioned manner, it could not be developed as a hotel and was primarily used as a marriage hall. A shrewd Mr Jain realized the potential of the property, acquired it cheaply and redesigned as a state-ofthe-art star hotel. His success in reshaping its exterior and interiors pleasantly surprised Nagpurites, who were all praise for the transformation of an old-fashioned marriage hall into a luxurious five-star hotel. Little wonder that today Pride Nagpur has become one of the best addresses in the City of Oranges.

WINNING FORMULA

With these initial two experiences in Pune and Nagpur, Mr Jain mastered the art of acquiring start-up hotels or halfbuilt properties at a low cost and then renovating, refurnishing and redesigning them as attractive five-star hotels. This not only saved a lot of money but also time by getting the property ready for operation in a short period.

Going further, he used the same strategy vis-a-vis an Ahmedabad property. An entrepreneur had decided to set up a hotel in Budakdev, a fast-developing area of the city. The property was half-built and the work had to be stopped on account of differences in the entrepreneur’s family as well as a shortage of funds also. Enter Mr Jain, who acquired the property and converted it into a luxurious five-star hotel. Today, Pride Ahmedabad with 175 rooms is one of the largest hotels in the city and the preferred choice of business visitors from all over the country as well as from abroad. Furthermore, Mr Jain used the same acquisition formula for Pride Chennai!

Reminisces Mr Jain, “This strategy brought down our cost of setting up new hotels substantially and at the same time it also shortened the gestation period. Overall, this strategy enabled us to speed up the pace of growth of the hotel chain.”

Another strategy adopted by Mr Jain was to take up the management of existing hotel properties. He started searching for hotels which were situated in prime locations but not doing well, or where the promoters had not enough experience to run them successfully. With the ‘Pride’ brand gaining recognition and a reputation, hotels under Pride management control are doing quite well, and the experiment is proved beneficial to both the promoters and the Pride group. Several hoteliers have thus come forward to join hands with Mr Jain.

PRIME LOCATIONS

All Pride hotels are located at prime locations in various cities, and the management ensures that the exteriors and interiors of the hotels reflect elegance and opulence.

But Mr Jain has not stopped with renovating exteriors and interiors. He notes, “Besides ensuring that exteriors and interiors reflect luxury, we pay special attention to food and beverages as well other as services. Hi-tech connectivity, room facilities, soft furnishing, etc are of international standards and ensure a totally satisfying customer experience. We believe that a really successful hotel is one where a customer would like to come again and again.” He adds, “As far as food and beverages are concerned, our hotels have multicuisine restaurants which serve mouth-watering dishes for our valued customers.”

The group operates its hotels under four brands. They start with Pride Plaza, the luxurious segment of super-upgrade hotels, which are full service hotels and have largesized plush rooms and premier amenities targeted at customers looking for luxury. These hotels are situated at prime locations, have tastefully adorned banquet spaces and state-ofthe-art meeting and conference rooms, ecletic food and beverage options and a fully-equipped fitness centre. Pride Ahmedabad, Pride Delhi Aerocity and Pride Kolkata belong to this category.

The second category --Pride Hotels — are upscale hotels, providing world-class hospitality combined with excellent ambience and quality services. Hotels in this category are ‘Prides’ Bangalore, Chennai, Nagpur, Pune and Indore.

The third category — Pride Resorts — are managed properties at scenic and tourist destinations. These are service resorts in Jaipur, Goa, Puri, Gangtok and Bharatpur. The fourth category — IBIZ Hotels — are mid-market segment hotels for every business. These hotels provide all facilities to businessmen to conduct their business from their hotel rooms. These biznotels are located at Agra, Rajkot, Surendrangar, Aurangabad and Bangalore, among others.

ROSY FUTURE

After the end of the disastrous Covid-19 pandemic, the hotel industry has started doing very well and the Pride group is no exception. For the year ended March 2023, the group has grossed a business turnover of Rs 300 crore and is expected to cross the Rs 500-crore mark within the next couple of years.

By 2030, the group has targeted a ‘century’ of hotels covering the entire country. This will require an fresh investment of over Rs 500 crore. With a view to funding this expansion, the group is planning to enter the capital market with an IPO. Says Mr. Jain, “We will come out with an IPO at a suitable time.” For good measure, he adds, “We are confident of reaching our target by 2030.”