The Hyatt Centric brand makes its debut in the national capital.
New Delhi: Travelers visiting Delhi will now have a recreation-oriented hotel dedicated to them. Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced the opening of Hyatt Centric Janakpuri, New Delhi, on 13 April, marking the Hyatt Centric brand’s debut in the national capital. The hotel is a 224-room property that will provide a launchpad for customers’ leisure and business activity to explore popular hotspots of the city. Located at prime destinations, Hyatt Centric is a brand of full-service lifestyle hotels. “Hyatt Centric Janakpuri, New Delhi, is the perfect destination for curious-minded, modern-day explorers who want to be at the heart of the action,” said Shikha Singh, general manager at Hyatt Centric Janakpuri New Delhi. Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director India & Southwest Asia, Hyatt Hotels, said, “Centric is about lifestyle. It is reflecting of ‘centric’, it’s the heart. It is about a point around which a destination and a place are to be explored. The guests who are here will experience a lot of energy. And we are seeing more leisure destinations for Hyatt and that’s a priority with our developers.”
Hyatt Hotels Corporation is currently running 34 properties across different brands in India, such as Hyatt Centric, Andaaz, Park Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Place, and Alila. By the end of next year, it is expected to be operating over 50 hotels which could go around up to 90 in the next five years. Peter Fulton, Group President of Hyatt Hotels, said, “We have gradually grown over time, and we will be conscious where we go and where we place these jewels in the crown as we populate ourselves through India which is an extremely vibrant country, the opportunities here in hospitality are tremendous. I don’t think we have really scratched the surface yet of what there is out there in the way of leisure and hospitality.”
He added, “We are very thoughtful about where we go and who we go with, our aim is never to be the biggest, we want to put the right hotel at the right place, we have never been in an acquisition game.”
Citing the performance of its chain of hotels, Fulton said that the Middle East has performed extremely well all through the pandemic. “In fact, Dubai has been recording tourist numbers in excess of 2019 for the last three quarters. Africa has been a little bit slower, just we don’t have many hotels down there. Europe also is starting to look a little stronger,” Fulton said.
While calling the bouncing back of the Indian market interesting, Fulton said, “I look at the pace in the market extremely vibrant over the next couple of months.” Sanjay Sharma also thanked the Indian market for the way domestic travel had taken place in Covid times. “We are very close to the 2019 numbers, but if you divide the country into various destinations, there are some destinations which are clocking numbers better than 2019.” As international flights have resumed, Sharma said, “I would say, we would see not only recovery, but we would have some great time.”
Answering a question on converting from Piccadilly to Hyatt Centric and what changes have been brought in this hotel, Venod Sharma, Chairman, Piccadilly group, said, “We have two other hotels, Hyatt Regency and Hyatt Regency Ludhiana, the performance of those hotels are excellent, and working with Hyatt I have found is a win-win situation for both of us and we both are getting benefits.”
He added, “We have requested the Hyatt organisation to take over this hotel and run it. I have total faith in them, I heard Hyatt Centric is a new style hotel, we agree and we are opening it today. It has taken us two years to renovate it and make a few changes in accordance with the Hyatt standards.”