BY RICHARD LEE
Hearst Connecticut Media
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide plans to move its executives from Stamford to India for a monthlong immersion next March, repeating a temporary-relocation practice started in 2011.
“Rapidly growing markets and a more interconnected world are bringing high-end travelers to new markets like never before,” President and CEO Frits van Paasschen said in a statement. “As a company with operations in over 100 countries, we at Starwood know that there is no substitute for witnessing first-hand this huge transformation.”
India”™s population is expected to overtake China”™s by 2030, he said.
“We all know of India as a hotbed of technological innovation and global services,” van Paasschen said. “Coupled with the rise in entrepreneurship and investment, millions of people are joining its middle class every year. And, of course, this means millions of new travelers.”
More than a dozen executives, including Starwood”™s senior leadership team, will relocate for the entire period, while other Starwood managers will come for part of the month. In total, based on the Dubai relocation in 2013, more than 200 Starwood staffers might participate.
The relocation is Starwood”™s way of maintaining strong relationships with employees, government officials, the hotel development sector and important players in various cities, said Bruce Ford, vice president of Lodging Econometrics, a consultant to the lodging industry.
“It”™s so difficult to communicate with global team leaders with the challenges of global time changes of nine to 12 hours,” he said. “They do a lot of strategic planning there, and the plan is really working. Starwood is trying to bring its corporate image there.”
The company is aggressively implementing an international growth plan, he said.
“Their pipeline outside the U.S. is more impressive than what they”™ve done domestically,” Ford said.
Starwood reported full-year revenue of $6.1 billion in 2013, and this year”™s second-quarter revenue rose 5.6 percent to $1.54 billion compared with the same period a year ago.
In a research note issued Sept. 26, Zacks gave the company”™s stock a “neutral” rating.
Starwood”™s brands include Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, W Hotels, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien, element and Aloft.
The company”™s legacy in India dates back to 1973 with the debut of its Sheraton brand in Mumbai. Starwood operates 40 hotels in India with another 36 hotels under development. Across South Asia, Starwood is on track to reach its goal of 100 hotels under operation or development in the region by 2016.
Noting that India is nearly 8,000 miles and 10 time zones away from the company”™s Stamford headquarters, van Paasschen said the team will travel to Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Kochi, as well as throughout South Asia to Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives, to meet with associates, customers, property owners and prospective developers, where Starwood is seeing growth opportunities.
“With South Asia as our home base, we”™ll be within a five-hour flight from nearly 40 percent of our global pipeline for new hotels,” van Paasschen said. “As we look at these growth markets, we will explore how we create opportunities for the thousands of people who will enter the global workforce through Starwood.”
Starwood Hotels & Resorts, like other large hotel chains, has been pushing to develop more hotels overseas as the North American market becomes more constrained, said Robert Mandelbaum, director of research information services at PKF Hospitality Research.
India provides a good opportunity for Starwood to grow its brand presence, he said.
“It (relocating to India for March) is a good marketing tactic and a good-faith move. It educates the U.S brand executives to give them a better idea of the business environment there.”
Hearst Connecticut Media includes four daily newspapers: Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time, The Advocate (Stamford) and The News Times (Danbury). See stamfordadvocate.com for more from this reporter.
