Ginger to add family-owned hotels to its network.

The Tata group's no-frills budget hotel chain Ginger is looking to add 30-35 small family-run hotels to its network via franchise agreements or management contracts, as it seeks to accelerate its expansion in key markets such as Mumbai and Delhi while keeping a close watch on profitability. The company made profits on a pre-tax basis for the first time in 2013-14. Ginger, a unit of Tata group-controlled Indian Hotels Co. Ltd., runs 30 properties across India and has plans to expand to 80 -90 properties by 2018, said P. K. Mohankumar, managing director and chief executive officer of Ginger's parent Roots Corp. Ltd., in an interview. 'We are looking at family-run hotels under the franchise agreement. Our plan is to acquire 30-35 properties in business clusters in Mumbai and Delhi through this programme,' said Mohankumar. Family-run hotels are finding it hard to market themselves in the current scenario and the next generation of such families is often not keen on the hospitality sector, explained Mohankumar.

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