Eight Continents Hotels & Resorts, a UK-based hotel group, is deepening its focus on the Indian market with an ambitious expansion plan that aims to add 50 new hotels by 2030. The group operates 13 hotels in India currently and has a pipeline of 6 hotels, which are set to join the portfolio in the next couple of months’ time.
Founded in 2020 by hospitality veteran Haninder Sachdeva, the company began as a hotel consultancy before transitioning into ownership and management in 2021. The hotel company both owns and operates hotels in the UK with last acquisition being the La Barbarie Hotel in Guernsey in the Channel Islands.
“We started managing hotels in the UK, and today we are both an owning company and an operator,” said Sachdeva in exclusive virtual interaction with HospitalityBizIndia. “While we continue to own hotels in the UK, our focus outside the UK, including in India, is primarily on management.”
Eight Continents entered India by setting up a full-fledged back office to support its UK operations a few years ago. The India back office in Gurugram in Delhi NCR, also provides back-end support to many independently owned hotels in the UK.
Calling it a “strategic move” that really helped the company to pitch and expand its management model, Sachdeva felt that it was critical to have the “nervous system” in India to consolidate the brand presence in a market like India.
“We understood that to run the Indian operations efficiently, your nervous system has to be in India. We shifted our reservations, revenue management, HR, and IT functions to India to increase efficiency and profitability.”
Sachdeva said the group’s India strategy revolves around tier II and III cities, where an aspirational class is driving new demand for high-quality hospitality experiences. “Our focus is on delivering world-class experiences in markets like Pushkar, Jodhpur, Ludhiana, and Nainital—places where guests expect quality but are underserved,” he said. “The Indian consumer today is very aspirational, and we want to cater to that mindset.”
The company’s Indian portfolio currently consists mostly of sub-100 room hotels, but it has already signed two larger properties—an 80-room and a 120-room hotel—slated to open in 2026. “We don’t want to be seen as a company that only runs small hotels,” said Sachdeva. “We are open to larger properties in gateway cities as opportunities come up.”
Eight Continents Hotels & Resorts has a versatile portfolio catering to various market segments. Explaining the portfolio of brands and their positioning, Sachdeva said, “We want to promote at least 6 brands from our portfolio actively in India. Our first entry was with Treetop in Sariska, which is our four-star, upper-class brand. We also have Stamps, an affordable segment brand; Hanric, our luxury brand already operating in Nainital; and our signature Eight Continents Collection, which represents our top-tier luxury properties.”
Except for brand Volga, which is quite European in its architecture, Sachdeva said they are game for the rest of the six brands in India.
Eight Continents follows a management-first approach for partnerships, but Sachdeva said they remain flexible. “Our primary model is management contracts, which allow us to maintain control over quality and brand standards,” he said. “However, we are also open to franchising in select cases.”
While focused on growth, Sachdeva emphasized that expansion would not come at the cost of quality. “We want to be known as a luxury operator delivering exceptional experiences—whether it’s a 40-room property in a hill station or a 100-room hotel in a gateway city. We aim to be part of every traveller’s bucket list.”
While he understands the challenges of being a fairly new player in the Indian market, Sachdeva exuded the confidence that they would be able to “adjust” and gain “acceptance” as brands from their portfolio take positions in India’s hospitality landscape.
“We are not here to be everywhere—we are here to make an impact wherever we are,” said Sachdeva, summing up the conversation.
