Royal Orchid Hotels Limited (ROHL) is looking to significantly scale its managed and franchised portfolio by leveraging the management capabilities it has built over the years, with Z by Regenta emerging as a key growth engine under its Vision 2030, according to Keshav Baljee, Executive Director, ROHL.
In one of his first media interactions since taking charge as Executive Director in February, Baljee said his mandate is centred on strengthening the company’s management business, accelerating the Regenta portfolio and driving the Z by Regenta brand, alongside building out the company’s recently signed strategic partnership with Hilton for Hampton by Hilton.
Preparing ROHL for the next growth phase
Baljee said his immediate priority has been to strengthen the organisation, processes and operating capabilities ahead of what he describes as a significant jump in the company’s growth trajectory.
ROHL currently has around 125 operational hotels and another 50 projects underway. With the company adding around eight to 10 properties to its development pipeline every quarter, Baljee said the organisation needs to enhance its operating systems and manpower capabilities to support the anticipated scale-up.
“It’s almost a quantum growth that is going to come in the next one or two years,” he said, adding that greater urgency is also being brought into project completion, sales and marketing, brand management and business development.
Sweating existing capabilities
According to Baljee, one of ROHL’s key strengths is the management infrastructure it has developed across the country, including senior management, supervisory teams, software platforms, sales and development teams, project execution and marketing.
With more than 100 sales personnel across the country, the company has already invested substantially in this infrastructure. The opportunity now, he said, is to leverage these capabilities across a much larger asset base.
“The same management team, the same sales team, the same marketing team gets sweat over more assets,” Baljee said, describing the model as a win-win for ROHL, hotel owners and brand partners.
Z by Regenta: A key Vision 2030 growth engine
While ROHL’s Vision 2030 was formulated before the Hampton by Hilton partnership was added to the portfolio, Baljee said a substantial ramp-up of Z by Regenta was already central to the plan.
“Z by Regenta is one large component of the growth in Vision 2030,” he said.
Positioned as ROHL’s most franchise-friendly offering, Z by Regenta is designed primarily for smaller, full-service neighbourhood hotels, typically in the 30–60-room category. The brand is aimed at entrepreneurs who may want to develop and partly self-manage their properties but require the support, systems and standards of an established hotel company.
Baljee said ROHL is currently working on making the Z model more scalable across signing, monitoring, operations and brand alignment. The company already has some Z by Regenta properties signed and operational and, according to him, is seeing strong interest from prospective owners, including what he described as an “almost waiting list” of owners seeking to partner with the brand.
Unlocking the neighbourhood hotel opportunity
Baljee sees a particularly large opportunity in the neighbourhood hotel segment, which he believes remains underserved by organised hotel brands.
“A good neighbourhood hotel is something that India very desperately needs,” he said, pointing out that a large proportion of new hotels being developed in the country fall within the 30–60-room range.
The challenge, he noted, is that such properties are often too small to support the economics of a conventional professionally managed hotel while still requiring access to quality manpower, sales and marketing, standardised processes and reliable service delivery.
Z by Regenta is being developed to address precisely this gap, he informed.
Baljee illustrated the opportunity through the example of Delhi’s neighbourhoods, where multiple 30–60-room hotels could operate within close geographical proximity without necessarily competing directly with each other. Several such properties could potentially be serviced through shared management resources, including a manager overseeing multiple hotels.
The model, he said, is built around creating a network of complementary neighbourhood properties rather than treating every hotel as a standalone asset.
Innovation before hockey-stick growth
Baljee expects Z by Regenta’s growth to accelerate as ROHL develops the systems required to make the model scalable.
He said the company is working on innovations across technology, processes and people to improve how properties are signed, operated and managed.
The objective, however, is not growth at any cost. Baljee said ROHL would rather add fewer hotels while protecting service quality and brand integrity than chase an arbitrary number.
“I would rather slow things down and then speed things up,” he said, emphasising that hospitality quality remains central to the company’s expansion philosophy.
More brands, broader owner proposition
While Z by Regenta is expected to play a significant role in the growth strategy, Baljee said the wider Regenta platform will continue to expand substantially.
The Hampton by Hilton partnership adds another growth avenue. ROHL has an exclusive SLA with Hilton covering Goa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, with a commitment to sign 125 Hampton hotels over 10 years.
Baljee said the partnership combines Hilton’s global brand standards with ROHL’s local market and operating expertise. The company is currently working through Hilton’s processes and systems before accelerating development with its partner network.
Baljee believes having multiple brand and partnership options will strengthen ROHL’s ability to attract hotel owners.
While Regenta remains the company’s core home-grown platform, the addition of Hampton and the expansion of Z by Regenta allow ROHL to offer different propositions depending on the size, location, investment profile and operating requirements of a property.
He said this broader portfolio would enable the company to become relevant to a larger pool of development partners while generating additional management income from a wider asset base.
With around 125 operational hotels, 50 projects already under development and a growing pipeline, the company is seeking to leverage its existing capabilities across a much larger portfolio. Z by Regenta, in particular, is expected to unlock a segment of the Indian hotel market that Baljee believes is growing rapidly but remains structurally underserved.
The company’s ambition under Vision 2030 is to take its overall portfolio to around 350 hotels, with Z by Regenta forming a significant part of that expansion. For Baljee, the opportunity lies in combining ROHL’s hospitality pedigree and management capabilities with a scalable neighbourhood hotel model—while ensuring that growth does not come at the expense of the guest experience or the brand.
