STARTUPS
The Palace and the Seventy: Ginger Hotel Story
In 1903, the doors of the Taj Mahal Palace swung open in Mumbai.
They have not closed since. A hundred and twenty-three years later, the hotel still stands as the most valuable property the Tata Group owns, a grand old building that has watched generations of guests step through its entrance.
Now imagine a very different building. It sits in a Tier II city. There is no sweeping lobby, no century of legacy, no famous skyline behind it. It is a Ginger hotel: simple, practical, built for a different kind of traveler.
Now imagine seventy of them, lined up one after another.
This is the picture Puneet Chhatwal, CEO of IHCL, the Tata company that runs both, keeps in his mind. He has done the math, and the numbers tell a curious story. Add up the revenue of all seventy Ginger hotels, and you arrive at what one Taj Mahal Palace brings in. But when it comes to profit, there is no contest. That single Taj earns more than all seventy Gingers combined.
It is the kind of result that makes you stop and wonder. If one palace outearns seventy hotels, why would anyone build the 70?
The answer begins with a price tag.
A night at the Taj costs between ₹40,000 and ₹80,000. For most Indians, that is not a rate to be negotiated or saved up for. It belongs to another world entirely. Somewhere on the other side of that gap are 40 to 50 crore people living in Tier II and III cities, travelers who still need a place to rest their heads. Ginger was built for them.
Meanwhile, the Taj has lost none of its pull. The brand still brings in about 70% of IHCL's revenue, which crossed ₹2,419 crore last quarter.
Yet Chhatwal does not romanticize the business behind the glamour. Ask him what a hotel really is, and he answers plainly: "You have to sell a lot of tea, coffee, beer and cocktails to make very little money."
So the company holds two stories at once. One is a palace that earns the profit. The other is a chain of seventy that reaches the people. Neither tells the whole tale without the other.
Which brings the question to your door.
If you had to choose, would you take one Taj, or seventy Gingers?
Tell us in the comments below.
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