Hospitality industry veteran Kapil Chopra recently unveiled a new luxury hotel brand, The Postcard Hotel, and launched three new properties in Goa under the label.

Chopra, who has earlier served as the president of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts, said seven more luxury hotels under the brand would come up at different locations like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh over the next 12-18 months.

“Work has already started on few of these seven properties. We are looking to have around 50 hotels in the next five years,” Chopra, Three hotels, part of the proposed seven new properties, would come up in eastern and north eastern parts of the country in partnership with Ambuja Neotia group, he added.

Elaborating on future plans, Chopra said he would first like to establish the brand in India and then venture out into international locations.

“We plan to build a luxury hospitality company out of India. People are ready to pay but there are no properties which could offer intimate and personalised luxury experience. The entire segment needed a disruption,” he added.

The new brand would focus on hotels with 8-50 rooms so that the guests could have a personalised experience, Chopra said.

“What I wanted to do with The Postcard Hotel is make luxury hotels for the modern audience but bring back the romance and charm of sun kissed holidays..as a strategy, we will either go to mountains, sea and wildlife sanctuaries,” he noted.

The properties under the new brand would not have a check in or check out time, no mini bar or breakfast hours, Chopra said.

“We want travel to be experiential and transformative. We believe guests want to stay in a place where the hotel does the thinking for them, where they get the simple things right, yet offer fantastic spaces for them to relax, meet like minded people and experience local culture,” he added.

On opening properties abroad, Chopra said the first hotels could come in countries like Sri Lanka and Bhutan.

Chopra, who is also the chairman of the board of restaurant reservation application EazyDiner, said the company has received funding from Small Ventures, a venture capital firm based out of UAE.

He added that the brand would prefer combination of strategic buy outs and long term leases for its upcoming properties.

Headquarted in Delhi, The Postcard Hotel already has 300 employees on its rolls.

Content Courtesy: Business Standard