Version 1: Taj owner IHCL will reach 700 hotels years before its 2030 target

Revenue rose 21.7% to Rs 2,484 crore in July to September, and the CEO says the Tata hotel company will hit 700 hotels within FY27.

In 2024, the company that runs Taj hotels set itself a goal: 700 hotels by 2030. It now looks like it will get there years ahead of time. On 21 October 2026, Indian Hotels Company Limited, or IHCL, shared its results for July to September, and its chief said the company will have 700 hotels within FY27, the money year that ends in March 2027.

IHCL is part of the Tata Group. Besides Taj, it runs brands like Ginger, Gateway, SeleQtions and Tree of Life. Here is what the new numbers say, in plain words.

The big numbers, one by one

A quarter is three months. Companies call July to September of this year Q2 FY27. In this quarter, IHCL's revenue from operations rose 21.7% to Rs 2,484 crore, from Rs 2,041 crore a year earlier. That means about Rs 443 crore more came in than in the same three months of 2025.

In his own statement, managing director and CEO Puneet Chhatwal called it the eighteenth record quarter in a row. He gave a total revenue figure of Rs 2,566 crore, up 21%, and a profit of Rs 349 crore, up 23%.

Two cards compare revenue from operations: Rs 2,041 crore in July to September 2025 and Rs 2,484 crore in July to September 2026, up 21.7% — Same three months, one year apart: revenue grew by more than a fifth.

Revenue and profit are not the same thing

Picture a samosa stall. On a busy day, you sell samosas worth Rs 1,000. That Rs 1,000 is your revenue, all the money that came in from sales. But you also paid for potatoes, oil, gas and the rent for your spot. What is left after paying every bill is your profit.

For a hotel company, revenue is room rent, food, weddings, meetings and fees. Profit is what is left after paying staff, electricity, repairs, loans and tax.

You may see two profit numbers in the news. CNBC-TV18 reports Rs 380 crore, up from Rs 318 crore. Moneycontrol reports Rs 349 crore, up 22.5% from a year earlier, which matches the figure in the CEO's statement. The two numbers count profit in slightly different ways. Either way, profit grew by about one fifth.

What helped the hotels earn more

The company listed four main drivers:

RevPAR up 25% at its Indian hotels that were open a year ago too. RevPAR means revenue per available room. Imagine a hotel with 100 rooms. Add up all the room money it made in a night and divide by 100, counting the empty rooms too. If more rooms fill up, or each room costs more, RevPAR goes up.
Management fees up 25%, helped by new hotels opening.
Select service business up 25%. This is the simpler, cheaper side, with brands like Ginger, Qmin, Ama and Tree of Life, as Business Standard lists them.
Two recent buys, the Brij and Atmantan businesses, added to the numbers.

Owning a hotel vs running one

That "management fee" line is worth a closer look. A hotel company can make money in two ways. It can own the building and keep all the room money, but it also pays for everything, from bricks to bedsheets. Or it can run a hotel that someone else owns. The owner puts up the money, the hotel carries a brand name like Taj or Ginger, and the company that runs it gets a fee.

Think of a famous chai brand. It can open its own shop, or it can let a shop owner use its name and recipe for a fee. The second way lets the brand spread faster without spending so much of its own money. For IHCL, management fee income grew 25% in the quarter, and the company linked that to the momentum in new openings.

Four steps: an owner builds a hotel, IHCL signs a deal to run it, guests stay under a Taj or Ginger name, and IHCL earns a management fee — Running a hotel for its owner brings in a fee, without buying the building.

670 hotels, but only 390 are open

Here is the part that confuses many people. IHCL says its portfolio is now 670 hotels. A portfolio is every hotel it has a deal for. But only 390 of them are open today.

The other 280 are in the pipeline. That means the deal is signed, but the hotel is still being built or prepared. It is like booking a seat for a cricket match months ahead: your place is sure, but the match has not started. Together, those 280 hotels will have more than 32,000 rooms. Check the sum: 390 open plus 280 coming equals 670.

In the first half of FY27, from April to September, IHCL signed 47 new hotels and opened 20. The new openings included Taj hotels in Frankfurt, Lucknow and Tadoba, and the Taj Bush Lodge in Kruger, South Africa.

Three bars compare IHCL hotel counts: 390 open now, 670 open plus signed, and the 700 hotel goal — With 670 hotels signed, IHCL needs only 30 more deals to reach 700.

Why 700 is coming so early

The 700 goal is part of a plan IHCL calls Accelerate 2030. With 670 already signed, only 30 more are needed. Chhatwal said the company expects new targets, called revised development guidance, in the middle of November.

The company also plans to open 30 hotels in the second half of the year, taking the full year to 50. He told analysts that IHCL should cross 400 open hotels in November, or before the end of December at the latest.

Watch on YouTube

In this ET Now interview from July 2026, after the previous quarter's results, Chhatwal spoke about demand running ahead of what the company had expected.

A bigger forecast for the year

Big companies often share a guidance, which is their own forecast for the year. It is like a student telling the class, "I think I will score 80% this year." IHCL raised its revenue growth forecast for FY27 from 12 to 14% to 15 to 17%. For the hotels alone, it now expects 17 to 19%.

The reasons it gave: the busy season ahead, strong demand for weddings and other social events, and MICE. MICE stands for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions, which is the business travel world of office trips and big events.

Ginger hits 100, and the cash pile

Ginger, IHCL's mid-priced brand, opened its 100th hotel. The company says it is the first brand in any hospitality segment in India to do so. Chhatwal wants many more. He told Business Standard that every district headquarters of India should have a Ginger, and big cities like Mumbai or Delhi "can have 10, 20, 30 or even 40 Gingers".

IHCL also has money in the bank. It reported gross cash of Rs 4,369 crore as of 30 September. According to Business Standard, it also spent a record Rs 500 crore on capex in the first half. Capex is money spent on long-lasting things like buildings and big upgrades. That was more than its capex for the whole of last year.

One more change is coming. IHCL plans to merge with Oriental Hotels, its associate company, to make the group's ownership simpler. The proposed start date for the merger is 1 April 2027.

Why this matters to you

Every time you go to a friend's wedding at a hotel, join an office offsite or book a cheap room for a college trip, you are part of numbers like these. IHCL's results show more Indians travelling and celebrating, and a company racing to put its names, from Taj to Ginger, in many more towns.

As it was first published

Taj owner IHCL will reach 700 hotels years before its 2030 target