By Rashmi Pradhan

REALISING THE dearth of branded hotels across the country in the mid-market segment, Keshav Baljee, Co-promoter of Royal Orchid Hotels; MD of Spree Hotels ventured into the business of hotel franchise under the brand ’ZiP Rooms’. Keshav Baljee, CEO, ZiP Rooms, in an interaction with BW Hotelier said, ’I realised that several hotels across the country were run by good entrepreneurs but needed some benefits of a chain to generate more profit. Especially since times are tough for most hoteliers, the fact that we could help provide 10-15 per cent extra revenues and save around 20-30 per cent of hoteliers’ costs made it a good win-win proposition for both the parties. This is why we launched ZiP Rooms recently and have grown quite well in the last few months.’
Currently, ZiP Rooms has signed up hotels in 24 cities with over 2000 keys. ’We expect to hit 10,000 rooms in 100 plus cities in the next one year. We are signing mid-market and budget hotels, serviced apartments and resorts. The primary focus is to cover most business and leisure markets as the focus is top 100 markets in India. We are looking for VC funding,’ Baljee informed.
Speaking on the cutting edge that ZiP Rooms enjoy over other players in the segment, Baljee said, ’ZiP Rooms is built on the strong hospitality platform we have built in Spree Hospitality. We have built a strong technology platform which can empower independent hoteliers across the country to gain more revenues and save on costs.’
’ZiP Rooms works on a co-branding and franchise model. We are a soft-brand and a promise of quality to our customers. Our hotels get the benefits of associating with a big chain ’ training and development, procurement assistance, standard operating procedures, recruitment assistance, and even management support if needed. Most importantly we provide a network of sales offices, a mobile app and booking engine which enables the hotel to increase its revenue drastically,’ he added explaining on how the ZiP room model worked.
Baljee told us that they are targeting the discerning, value-conscious leisure and business traveler who is looking for good quality standard accommodation across India. The target age group is between 18-35. They aimed to be the most reliable budget hotel brand for frequent travelers in the country. ’We want our brand to be synonymous with rock-solid quality service delivery. We are possibly the only aggregator to be heavily focused on service,’ he said.
ZiP Rooms is well connected to the industry and is reaching out to established entrepreneurs to work together. They are seeking long-term relationships with hotels to build a formidable network of hotels across India. According to him, the company audits all their hotels with their brand standards. As long as the hotel meets brand standards, the company then proceeds to the next step of product and service standardisation.
’We are not directly competing with OTAs as we provide a differentiated business model--we see ourselves as a brand that aggregates hotels. As such, our hotels can be listed on the OTA portals as well, as we will distribute the hotels as widely as possible,’ he explained. Compared to others, the advantage that ZiP Rooms has is that they are from within the hospitality industry and understand that rooms ins not the only business. ’We also focus on food and beverage and provide sales and operational assistance there as well. We believe that by partnering with the best hoteliers across India, we can put together the most impressive chain of budget and mid-market hotels across India. Quality is what will allow us to combat our competition!’ he remarked.
Baljee sees great potential in his business model. ’The current market size of the digital hotel booking industry is at USD 1 billion, which will increase to around USD 8-10 billion in the next 3-4 years, according to our internal estimates. We believe that we can brand the unbranded hotels across India for mutual benefits, growing to around 10,000 keys across 100 cities in the next one year,’ he concludes.
The author is Assistant Editor at BWHotelier.