AWARD-WINNING international hotel chain, Tune Hotels, has recently welcomed its first guests in India with the opening of the 100-room Tune Hotel Ahmedabad in May.
“Our business model is designed to take care of the needs of travellers in India looking for great comfort without paying exorbitant rates,” said Mark Lankester, group CEO of Tune Hotels.
“Ahmedabad is a vibrant city in the fast growing state of Gujarat. The Tune Hotel Ahmedabad aims to serve both domestic travellers and visitors from abroad, especially members of the large non-resident Indian (NRI) community from Gujarat settled in places like the US, Britain and the Gulf, who may already have had prior knowledge of the brand in the five countries we are already present in” he added.
The 100-room Tune Hotel Ahmedabad, annexed to the recently-developed 4D Square Mall in the city’s Motera area, is well positioned on the main thoroughfare to the state capital of Gandhinagar and a stone’s throw away from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Patel cricket stadium.
Aside from its standard single and double rooms, Tune Hotels will be introducing family rooms that can accommodate between four to six people in order to meet the needs of the Indian guests, especially in the wedding market. “With a view to the huge wedding market in India, the hotel is able to cater to the needs for major banquet facilities for that total wedding experience,” said Lankester.
Apart from properties in major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai Tune Hotels is focusing on Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities along with hotels in the tourist triangle destinations of Agra, Jaipur and Delhi. The group will have five to six hotels in Gujarat as part of its 20 planned hotels across India in the next three years.
With the opening of Tune Hotel Ahmedabad, there will be 29 Tune Hotels in operation globally. The rest are 11 in Malaysia, five in the UK, four in the Philippines, four in Thailand and four in Indonesia. By the end of 2013, Tune Hotels will have operating hotels in eight countries. Apart from India the company is set to open properties in Japan and Australia this year. Future projects are also coming up in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
Tune Hotels’ Indian expansion signifies growing economic relations between India and Malaysia, which has emerged as India’s key partner in Southeast Asia. Companies and business people are increasingly benefitting from these expanded business links and two-way flow of investment and people continues to rise. India-Malaysia trade hit a record high of $13.5 billion in 2012, a 7.3 per cent growth over 2011, while tourist traffic also continues to remain strong between the two countries.
The opening of Tune Hotel Ahmedabad comes as Asia’s largest low-cost carrier AirAsia plans to launch its domestic airline services in India in a new venture. “We see this as a great boost for not only travel between Malaysia and India, but adding further attraction to increasing travel within India. Like AirAsia, we pride ourselves on being a customer-focussed brand,” Lankester said.
Tune Hotels is part of Tune Group, a lifestyle business conglomerate co-founded by Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and Dato’ Kamarudin Meranun, who are the group chief executive officer and deputy group chief executive officer respectively of Asia’s largest low cost carrier AirAsia.