Priya Thakur, founder, Larisa Hotels and Resorts; and Randhir Narayan, founder, Am Hotel Kollection
Four years after Covid Shock, the hospitality industry in India is entering a period of maturity. A significant number of hotel companies has become OPI. A lot of properties have changed hands. According to JLL data, the hospitality sector saw a transaction activity worth ₹ 2,943.38 million rupees in 2024. Consolidation and strategic agreements are occurring.
One of those deals earlier this year was between the hotels and resorts of Larisa and Am Hotel Koltion, two relatively new players. It is illustrative to know why they joined their hands, to understand where the opportunities are.
The beginning
In 2015, Priya Thakur, a sales and marketing professional with varied experience in the corporate sector, established Larisa Hotels and Resorts in Manali at the request of her father. “We had our orchards there. At that time, tourists went to Manali and the people from abroad and built hotels, so my father said:” Why don’t you start something “?” Constantly, Thakur expanded to eight properties in different places, several of them possessed.
Meanwhile, almost at the same time, in 2014-15, Randhir Narayan, a hospitality veteran who had worked with the Oberoi, Kuoni and Xander group, decided to start Am Kollection to manage experimental boutique hotels. He climbed his company to 18 properties.
Since both had a strong belief in experimental hospitality, they decided to combine strengths, announcing the merger this February. Its combined operational income exceeds 100 million rupees, with 30 hotels that operate with approximately 1,000 rooms, two more launched and four more to sign. Narayan says: “Now we are a team. We will do everything together, with three brands to sacrifice.”
8 times by Larisa Resort in Jibhi, Himachal Pradesh
While the Larisa brand will be used for luxurious high-end properties with tariffs that are around ₹ 50,000 per day, a new brand, 8 times (named for the eight Buddha routes), has created for budget and medium-scale (₹ 4000-9,000). And then there is the AM brand for properties that challenge segmentation.
The sweet point
So where is the blank space for the combined entity? Especially with multinational and Indian hotel chains in the bow of acquisitions?
Thakur says: “From the owner’s perspective, if you are executing a property of 20 rooms, hypothetically, you do not want expectative software or multiple managers, as with larger chains.” She emphasizes that, being own owners, they understand the pain of management costs.
Narayan adds: “We are more rational on the cost of costs, which means a better value for the asset owner.”
So, will they charge a smaller management rate? “No, the structure of the management rate is common for 4 percent of the upper line … it cannot be manipulated because that is tested,” he says. But the difference is that the cost of reserves, marketing and other transactions will be zero or very small.
“The other flexibility we sacrifice is that we are not too worried about standardization,” he says, as a special for experimental boutique hotels, which require an individualistic aspect.
Thakur and Narayan plan to have skin in the game with a mixed model. “We are doing joint companies with owners, pure lease and management.”
The sector is in a roll of roll. It is the right time to add muscle in persecution for growth.
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Posted on April 27, 2025