Indian Hotels launches The Gateway Hotel chain : Tata group-promoted Indian Hotels Co plans to start a new brand of hotel christened "The Gateway Hotel" to target an emerging guest profile. The company, which owns the luxury hotel chain under the Taj brand and also runs the Ginger, the budget chain of hotel, is targeting 50 operating and signed hotels in the next three years.

The branding proposition is defined by IHCL's strategy of not wanting an omnibus known as Taj defining all its properties. Gateway will be positioned above the economy brand Ginger but placed below the Residency and the Taj brands. "We think the star game in hotels is outdated and, therefore, we have not defined this brand as any star. It remains an upscale option whereas Ginger would be our economy segment,'' said Ajoi Misra, senior V-P (sales and marketing), IHCL.

The Gateway Hotel would cater to a pan-India network of hotels and resorts offering all the key services at competitive prices. The pricing will start from Rs. 3,000 and may be over Rs 6,000 depending on the location. The group is looking at smaller cities as they are growing and also plans to expand in places such as Varanasi and Agra which attract a lot of leisure travelers.

"Our brand will be present in all business districts and leisure locations across India to offset the growing competition in the Indian hospitality market in the future," Raymond Bickson, CEO & MD, Indian Hotels Co (IHCL), said.

According to the company, 16 existing gateway hotels would migrate to this brand and another 10 new hotels have already been signed up to be incorporated within the Gateway chain. The hotels that would be rebranded as Gateway hotels are at Agra , Bangalore , Calicut , Chikmagalur, Conoor, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Madurai, Mangalore, Nasik , Sasan Gir, Surat , Vadodara, Varanasi , Vijaywada and Visakhapatnam.

The group has also signed up in all key metros - Mumbai, Bangalore , Chennai, Pune. Other locations signed up are Jalandhar, Mysore, Navi Mumbai, Raipur and Gondia. The existing 16 hotels have been refurbished to maintain consistency across the Gateway brand and will see no change in tariffs. The prices were increased on September 1, in accordance with Gateway hotel norms - prices increase in September and October, the start of the tourist season.

Hotel rates start from an unbelievable Rs 100 per night to few thousand