Checking Into the Big League

The world’s largest hotel chain, Marriott International, shot into the big league in India in 2016 soon after its high-profile acquisition of rival Starwood Hotels, which already had a significant presence in the country. It has used its global asset-light business model to expand its footprint in the highly competitive domestic hospitality industry, where oldtimers such as the Taj and Oberoi still have a big hold.

- Debabrata Das And Aveek Datta

FOR AN ENTIRE generation of Indians that grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, hotels tend to be synonymous with old local brands like the Taj, Maurya or the Oberoi. Mention the Oberoi or Maurya to trueblue Delhiites or the Taj Mahal Palace to old-time Mumbai residents, and they’ll probably tear up with nostalgia. Chances are you might even see the images flashing through their minds: afternoon lunches at the Taj’s Machan in Delhi, dancing at Maurya’s onceiconic discotheque Ghungroo, or romantic dates at the Mumbai Taj’s Sea Lounge overlooking the Gateway of India.

But times have changed. And so has the hospitality industry. People have many more hotels to make memories in, including a string of modern new global brands that are posing a challenge to traditional home-grown hotels. And top of the mind is the Marriott, a U.S. chain that set up shop in India with a resort in Goa in 1999 and has now become the second largest hotel chain in India after Indian Hotels with 105 properties in the bag. You can see the change as soon you come down the escalator at Delhi airport’s Terminal 3 to head to the baggage hall: The first thing that greets you is a large video wall set up by the Maryland-headquartered Marriott International. Drive out of the airport and a once barren wilderness is now a 45-acre complex dotted with 11 hotels—two of them are Marriott properties and none belong to the old and established Taj or Oberoi. “We are the fourth country in the world to have a 100-plus hotels in the Marriott International universe. The U.S. is the largest, followed by China, Canada, and then India,” Neeraj Govil, area vice president for South Asia at Marriott International, tells Fortune India.