Mumbai: Ventive Hospitality and Marriott International signed management contracts to expand their partnership for seven new hotels comprising 1,548 rooms. While six of the upper upscale and upscale hotels are located across Varanasi, Navi Mumbai, Pune and Mundra, the collaboration also announced an ultra-luxury Ritz-Carlton Reserve hotel in Sri Lanka.

Pune-based luxury hotel owner, developer and asset manager Ventive Hospitality, which has 11 operational hospitality assets with 2,036 rooms across India and Maldives, signed a contract with US-based hotel operator Marriott International on Tuesday for seven luxury, upper-upscale and upscale hotels. While both the companies have been partners for six hotels across the country, the new contract will take the partnership up to 13 hotels.

Three of these hotels are being developed by Ventive Hospitality and its subsidiaries. This includes a 73 villa Ritz-Carlton Reserve at Pottuvil near Yala East National Park in Sri Lanka, 161-room Varanasi Marriott and a 200-room Courtyard by Marriott on the leasehold land in Gujarat’s Mundra.

The remaining four hotels will be developed by the promoter group companies on right of first offer or alternate structure basis for Ventive Hospitality and will be transferred to the company.

This includes a 450-room upper-upscale JW Marriott in Navi Mumbai, which is slated to be the district’s first luxury hotel project, and three lifestyle hotel Moxy, 200-room property in Navi Mumbai as well as 264 and 200-room properties in Pune’s Wakad and Kharadi.

Replying to The Free Press Journal, Ventive Hospitality’s chairman and executive director Atul Chordia revealed that while Varanasi and Pune projects have already started, the group has completed design work for all the projects.

“We are expecting to complete all the projects in the next four to five years. Every year we will deliver 200 to 300 rooms. On an average we are expecting a capital expenditure of 2.5cr and earn 35 lakh EBITDA per room,” he said.

Rajeev Menon, president of Marriott International for Asia Pacific, said, “Marriott has always viewed India as one of its strategic locations. Soon, India will be the third largest country for us, out of the 144 operational countries. The seven new projects will be more than just keys and every one of them will be a gem of a hotel. This partnership expansion also includes projects where we missed brand representation like Mundra as well as Varanasi, where the government of India is also focusing on.”