Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) on Thursday said it is expecting to accelerate its growth to 30% in the next few years on the back of positive industry sentiment and expansion.

"We intend to significantly increase our footprint in India, driven by '3R' (restructure, reengineer, and reimagine) strategy and achieve our aspiration of doubling the room keys and expanding the operating margin by 800 bps over the next five years," N Chandrasekharan, Chairman, IHCL told shareholders at the company's AGM here.

"Our journey of growth has already commenced, marked by the sharpening of Taj, Vivanta and Ginger brands as well as launch of a new collection called 'SeleQtions'," he added.

Chandrasekharan said IHCL will also take initiatives to work together with other Tata companies.

"The company is growing at a rate of 8-10%, which we plan to increase to 30% in the next few years," he added.

The country's favourable demographics, with a large and growing middle class coupled with rising income levels and spending patterns have been triggers for growth, which remain extremely favourable to the company, he said.

Chandrasekharan said the travel and tourism sector is expected to grow at 6.9% per annum, on healthy growth in the aviation industry and robust government-led initiatives aimed at stimulating the sector, including promoting the expansion of e-visa scheme. Moreover, the hospitality sector has been witnessing growth in the recent years.

"As a cumulative result of all these factors, demand growth in the hotel industry has been clearly outpacing that of supply, leading to a surge in occupancies and RevPARs," he added.

The company is looking forward to open eight new hotels this year, he added.

IHCL, he said, has turned profitable for the first time in six years, recording INR 101 crore profit with a total revenue of INR 4,165 crore.

The company's overall consolidated debt has also been reduced to around INR 2,400 crore from a peak of INR 5,800 crore, he added.

(Source: moneycontrol)