Louvre Hotels Group, a wholly owned hospitality vertical of Jin Jiang International, and Sarovar Hotels & Resorts of India have made a joint announcement of a merger. No monetary details of the deals have been announced, but spokesmen of both the companies announced Louvre Hotels will have a commanding majority stake in Sarovar Hotels & Resorts.
Anil Madhok, Managing Director of Sarovar Hotels & Resorts told the media the deal reflects the fast evolving hotel landscape where companies can onl grow through such mergers. The Louvre deal will help Sarovar to expand rapidly both in India and in Africa, according to the executive. With OTA commissions in focus, Madhok also commented on both groups mitigating some of this expense via negotiating power.
Ajay Bakaya, Executive Director, Sarovar Hotels also addressed the media talking about his company’s progress, and how tech and distribution will become the true differentiators for global players. The merger of the company with Louvre Hotels, he said, “gives Sarovar the technology support and market access to world’s largest potential travel market.” This plays out with Jin Jiang and partner group Plateno Group having announced the combining of their relative loyalty programs, which now total over 100,000,000 guests.
According to the news, Sarovar Hotels is to retain its market identity. Pierre Frederic Roulot, CEO, Jin Jiang Europe added this:
“We are a multi-local group, which respects the local partners and their strengths. They understand the market and people better. We can give more technological help as well as market access.”
Louvre Hotels, originally a French hotel company was acquired by Chinese travel conglomerate, Jin Jiang, in February 2015, and currently have more than 1,200 hotels in 54 countries with approx 1 lac hotel rooms under operation. The owning company, Jin Jiang, has 4300 hotels in China alone.