Luxury boutique hotels in India, which typically only served foreign guests, had to adapt their marketing to appeal to locals during the covid era. The hotels are happy to see returning international visitors, and they are also optimistic about keeping their domestic clientele.The increasing desire for experiential travel, by not only the millennials but across different cohorts often looking for unique and exclusive stays, has led to the growing popularity of this concept in the country.
“The luxury boutique segment is expected to become an increasingly preferred choice in the post-COVID era as people rediscover the pleasures of traveling but are still cautious with safety, cleanliness and privacy being their top priorities. These hotels are best positioned to leverage this demand by gaining guest confidence and trust due to their smaller size, with lesser number of rooms and smaller public places.”
Luxury boutique properties can help in tapping the full potential of leisure tourism in India. There are several unexplored and underdeveloped beaches, wildlife sanctuaries, heritage sites and hill stations in India which can be developed into established leisure destinations but are lagging due to lack of quality accommodation. As domestic tourism picks up, a growing number of travellers will seek ‘memorable experiences’ at such previously unexplored leisure destinations.
There are several boutique hotels in lesser-known areas of India, making many of the country’s travel hotspots more accessible to tourists. Some examples of places where boutique hotels have helped establish a strong local identity among tourists are Mayurbanjh in Odisha, Jamatara in Madhya Pradesh, and Gadholi in Uttarakhand.
Additionally, the luxury boutique house stay industry is predicted to expand rapidly as more and more individuals desire to explore the world by visiting exotic locations where they can enjoy privacy and seclusion without sacrificing the luxuries of a five-star hotel.
The recent surge in wellness tourism in the country has been successfully met by a number of high-end boutique hotels. In the post COVID world, an increasing number of people are going to seek individualised and unique wellness experiences, especially when inbound tourism recovers to its full splendour.
The need for highly individualised destination weddings for small groups of guests is projected to be a major factor in the expansion of premium boutique resorts. Demand is witnessing even in temple towns.
Some private hotel investors are placing their money on high-end “boutique” hotels rather than more traditional options . Big giants like ITC Hotels too this year announced Storii by ITC catering to boutique segment. Ama Trails is a new experiential hotel group that Taj Hotels has partnered with to launch a boutique brand under. It’s possible that the pandemic sparked the creation of the Postcard Hotel, a luxury chain with an extravagant service philosophy and design, the expansion of smaller chains to run a string of hotels, and the birth of many more maverick hoteliers opening their first boutique hotel.