Every major Indian metro has at least one American hotel brand. And upmarket Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Radisson brands may be upstaged by budget hotels like Best Western and Comfort Inn.
In recording his trip around the world in the book Following the Equator (1898), American author and humorist Mark Twain wrote about Banaras as being "older than history, older than tradition, older than even legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together!"
Traveling in the 19th century, Twain endured many hardships in his travels in India, and while we don't know exactly where Twain stayed in the legendary city of Kashi, the abode of Lord Shiva, were he able to time-travel and come back today, he'd be rather astonished and probably pleasantly surprised to find his options for comfortable lodging in the timeless city would now include American hotel chains such as a Best Western Hindustan and Radisson Varanasi.
He'd be further surprised to find a down-home bakery and whole foods restaurant called Bread of Life run by an American expat from Kansas City! Thanks to globalization, the world has shrunk.
Even a generation ago, when another American writer, Beat poet Allen Gins-berg visited Varanasi to bathe in the Ganges, India was still an exotic, far-away place to most Americans and the idea that one day typical American fast-foods such as pizza, burgers and fries could be found along with American hotel chains in India's most sacred, traditional city-or any other of India's metropolises-would have been unimaginable. But here we are with our Banarasi-wallah friends sitting on the steps of Assi Ghat on the Ganga munching on crusty wood-oven pizza washed down by a Pepsi as pilgrims take a dip in the holy timeless river just a few meters away.
Or on a summer Sunday afternoon in June, school is out and the air intoxicating-which in America would be cause to take the old Chevy out for a drive in the country-I find myself on the winding road up from Dehra Dun to Mussoorie joined by hundreds of Indian families out for a drive in the mountains in their Marutis-or Chevys or Fords-to escape the torrid heat of the plains and enjoy the cool, fresh air.
Mussoorie is about 2,130 meters up in the Himalayas and far from the sea, but as resident Anglo-Indian writer Ruskin Bond puts it, in many ways Mussoorie feels like and shares the characteristics of a seaside resort-in that it is packed with middle-class families and holiday-makers in the summer months.
And where do they stay? True, Mussoorie, the old Raj-era, dowager "Queen of the Hills," has quite a number of old colonial properties such as The Savoy and former maharaja's palaces turned into
hotels, but there is also a Best Western and Comfort Inn, two of America's most popular motel chains-and both of them packed with families from the plains. Best Western, happens to be the world's largest hospitality franchise and Comfort Inn is not far behind. Americans know them primarily as budget, family-friendly highway lodges that are good value for money and where basically every room is the same. The no-surprises, cookie-cutter concept-whether it be uniformity in hamburgers (think McDonald's) or hotels-is an American concept that seems to have caught on, whether it be Missouri, USA, or Mussoorie, India.
While the Holiday Inn brands-which originated in the U.S.-have been in India for some 30 years, the major American hotel chains entered India less than two decades ago when the government under P.V. Narasimha Rao, with the help of then finance minister, now Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh began liberalization of the economy in 1991. Now every major Indian metro has at least one American hotel brand such as Best Western, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Radisson and Ramada. Many of the American hotel ventures are tie-ups or joint ventures with Indian companies such as the Hilton's Trident brand with Oberoi, Marriott with the Welcomgroup and Carlson Country Inn & Suites (a subsidiary of Radisson's parent company) with Chanakya Hotels.
Marriott International, for example, announced in June that it plans to shift its focus from North America and Europe to the three emerging markets in Asia-the Middle East, China and India. Frederick Miller, vice president of global sales, Marriott International, said, "When you are looking at the new emerging market, these three regions are growing faster than any other around the globe. We are looking at increasing our presence in India and for this a clear growth map has been chalked out." At present, Marriott has seven properties in India including its Marriott, JW Marriott, Renaissance, Marriott Executive Apartments and Ramada Interna-tional brands, and plans to open a 308-room hotel in Hyderabad as well as the budget Courtyard Lodging brand soon. Hospitality industry pundits attribute the shift to Asia to the saturation of the North American and European markets.
Another growth area-and sign of India's economic boom-is the sudden spurt in the construction of serviced luxury apartments catering to foreigners and overseas businessmen, many of them nonresident Indians or persons of Indian origin.
Major U.S. brands entering India in this sector include Hyatt, Marriott and Oakwood, which exclusively operates serviced apartments. Oakwood is planning its expansion in India by setting up serviced apartments in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
Apartment hotels or serviced apartments are ideally suited for corporate executives relocating to India for the long term. With
economic growth and globalization, multinational corporations (MNCs) increasingly need to send their high-echelon executives to India. Thus, there is a need for furnished accommodation, and serviced apartments target MNC executives, diplomats, NGO representatives and others looking to India as a new business destination. Marriott International pioneered the concept of apartment hotels in India when it opened its Lakeside Chalet Marriott Executive Apartments in Powai near Mumbai, in June 2000.
From budget motels to luxury serviced apartments, American-often Indian American-hoteliers are sharing their expertise with India. One of the priorities of the new NRI Affairs Ministry headed by Jagdish Tytler will be to get clearances for Indian-origin American hoteliers who wish to set up motels and budget hotels along the highways of India. This is "on top of the agenda" for his ministry, said Tytler.
This should come as a shot in the arm for the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) which has a membership base of over 8,400, owning assets of over $40 billion, and is supporting various marketing initiatives on the Visit India 2004 campaign in the United States. "We are keen on putting India on the global tourism map since that will create big investment opportunities for us," says AAHOA director Hitesh Bhakta.
Although persons of South Asian origin are a minute percentage of the U.S. population, Indian Americans (mostly hailing from Gujarat) own about 17,000-about half-of U.S. franchise and independent economy motels, and New Delhi would like to woo them back home to put their expertise to work in India.
While one American trend is for uniformity, another is for individuality and exclusivity. So, while Best Westerns and Comfort Inns are starting to sprout up in Indian cities, one Indian hotelier, Priya Paul, chairperson of Park Hotels Ltd., has created a small but exclusive chain of designer boutique hotels. Taking inspiration from American celebrity boutique hotelier Ian Schrager, Paul has created a splash in Chennai with her Hollywood-inspired, California-designed Park Hotel.
On the street of Anna Salai, Chennai's main business district, there is no hotel signage, only the word "Park" outside a driveway which my driver mistook for a parking lot, not the name of a chic boutique hotel that has skillfully disguised itself in the former Gemini Film Studios building. As one enters the domino-like double doors punctuated with a series of port-hole windows, the stark minimalist lobby might give the impression of entering a contemporary office building with its elongated lozenge-shaped desk. The casually dressed staff in fashionable charcoal gray appear more like employees in a California fitness center-no doormen in mock military or naval uniforms that one might be tempted to salute. Above the layered lobby area are two scrims with mute movies unspooling, lest one forget that this is perhaps one of the most unique hotels in India-a themed, designer hotel centered around its past as a major film studio in the South Indian film industry.
While minimalist contemporary boutique hotels may be a rarity in India where the trend is usually toward the display of opulence and where more is definitely considered more, the understated designer hotel has been popular in the United States for over a decade for sophisticated clientele. It is not surprising then to learn that Priya Paul chose Los Angeles interior design firm Hirsch Bedner and Associates to transform the former Gemini Studios into its present reincarnation.
Each room is decorated differently with oversize movie posters, framed stills in the bathrooms and corridors, vicariously fulfilling a fantasy of being in the movie business. There is even a private mini-theater screening room holding about 30 seats for movie mogul wannabes who would like to show their own movies to their guests. And that's what the Park is all about. Like Miami Beach's legendary Fountainbleu, where guests could feel that they were living in a movie set, descending the grand stairs for their close-up, the Park makes you feel not only that you could be a star, but a movie mogul as well. The rooftop pool with its very 1960s black and white cabanas is very Miami Beach.
Back in the 1980s, Miami Beach was known for its decaying Art Deco hotels. At the time, New Yorker Ian Schrager, of Studio 54 (center of the Manhattan disco culture) notoriety, made a name for himself by transforming the old Deco hotels into fashionable boutique properties and making his stylish hotels as places to see and be seen. With rooms with a point of view, rather than a mere view, it was Schrager who said, "You are where you sleep." However, as one Chennai-based writer put it, sleeping is probably the last thing that you'd think of doing when you enter the Park's charged hyper-cool atmosphere.
So, whether today's traveler prefers an American-style budget motel, a designer boutique hotel or a serviced apartment, India now has it all. A reincarnated Mark Twain today would have been bewildered for choice. Who said that East is East and West is West? In Indian hotels the twain do meet.
About the Author: Daniel Haber is a freelance writer based in Kathmandu.