Ranjit Batra is the CEO of Ventive Hospitality, the hospitality arm of Panchshil Realty and a Blackstone-backed listed platform. Ventive is a leading owner, developer and asset manager of luxury and business hotels across India and the Maldives, with a portfolio of 11 renowned properties, including The Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott, DoubleTree by Hilton, and Conrad Maldives Rangali Island.
With 35 years of global experience, Batra started with The Oberoi Group, trained in Switzerland, and worked across India, the US, New Zealand and Switzerland. At Ventive, he has guided the company from incubation to listing, leading launches, acquisitions, turnarounds and major developments in Varanasi, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Excerpts from the interview
What is the core philosophy that differentiates Ventive’s “sense-of-place” luxury from the many new luxury flags entering India?
Luxury today is multidimensional—sometimes defined by design or service, but increasingly by the emotional resonance a place leaves behind. At Ventive, this belief shapes everything we build: luxury must be personal, contextual, and deeply connected to its surroundings.
Our approach begins with meaningful locations—places with cultural depth, natural beauty, or historical significance. We work with architects and designers who respond to each destination’s vocabulary, allowing the land to guide the aesthetic. Sustainability is integral, ensuring every property respects its environment and community.
Across India, this philosophy adapts to each region. In Pune, our hotels draw on the city’s intellectual and artistic heritage; in Bangalore, they reflect innovation and contemporary craft. Every detail—from design and F&B to hiring, uniforms and landscaping—reinforces a sense of place.
In the Maldives, it means a light, seamless presence in nature; in India, a dialogue between culture, craft and contemporary luxury. For Ventive, this is not a theme—it is our operating system.
Your Maldives portfolio has long been considered a benchmark for immersive, design-led luxury. How are you translating that global reputation into an Indian context?
Our Maldives properties are celebrated for offering rare, deeply immersive experiences that feel impossible to recreate. That ethos of the “unrepeatable experience” is what we are now translating into India. Leveraging Panchshil’s legacy of architectural quality and precision, we build Indian hotels with the same integrity and attention to detail that define our Maldivian resorts.
From this foundation, each property is shaped by three pillars: distinctive F&B, intuitive personalised service, and meaningful cultural storytelling.
We are not replicating Maldivian luxury in India but adapting its philosophy. Every destination becomes a cultural portrait shaped by its own craft, textures, and rhythms. This ensures authenticity while preserving Ventive’s signature blend of design depth, emotional resonance, and spatial clarity.
With a ₹20,000 in-hand minimum now implemented across your Pune Marriott portfolio, what prompted this people-first move?
Our decision to introduce a sector-first minimum in-hand salary of ₹20,000 across Marriott Pune emerged from a simple truth: hospitality depends entirely on the people delivering the experience.
Guests rely on our teams every single day—during peak hours, festivals, late nights and holidays. For them to show up with consistency and care, they must have stability and dignity in their own lives.
I have always believed that no one in our ecosystem should struggle to meet basic living standards while bearing the responsibility of serving guests at the highest level. Setting this benchmark is not an act of generosity—it is a responsibility.
We hope this move encourages others in the industry to recalibrate their own baselines. Raising the floor for our workforce strengthens the entire sector by improving retention, enhancing service, and creating a more sustainable model for the future of hospitality in India.
Ventive continued full wage payments during Covid when the industry was collapsing. How has that shaped your culture today?
Continuing full wage payments during Covid was fundamentally a decision about honouring the people who form our backbone.
That period created a powerful cultural shift. It strengthened trust, created a sense of psychological safety, and reinforced the belief that Ventive stands by its people not only during prosperous times but in moments of crisis.
Today, that culture shows up every day—in the motivation levels, in the pride our teams take in their work, and in the alignment across departments. It is one of the reasons our operational performance remains consistent and resilient.
Your acquisition and transformation of Hilton Goa signals a move into contemporary leisure luxury. What’s the vision?
Hilton Goa is being reimagined as a modern Goan escape—lighter, more design-forward, and deeply attuned to how travellers engage with Goa today.
Beyond design, we’re repositioning the property with a stronger lifestyle and wellness lens. But this is not wellness in the formulaic way it is often presented. Instead, we are grounding it in Goa’s creative rhythm, easy-going pace, and sense of community.
This is a reinvention, not just a renovation. We are expanding the hotel’s inventory, elevating the brand experience, and integrating a branded residences component to address the growing demand for long-stay luxury and second homes.
Soho House India marks your entry into creativity-led, membership-driven luxury. Why was it the right fit?
To me, Soho House represents culture in motion—where design, art, community, and belonging interact fluidly.
India’s creative class has grown exponentially, and this demographic seeks experiences that reflect identity and cultural affinity rather than pure aesthetics.
Soho House fits perfectly into that evolution. For Ventive, the brand represents an opportunity to shape the future of hospitality-led members’ clubs in India.
With a ₹2,000 crore capex plan and a goal of 4,000 keys, how will Ventive scale without losing design DNA?
Scale is meaningful only when design depth remains uncompromised. Our guiding principle is: grow wide, design deep.
Every project begins with understanding the land—its topography, cultural memory, and natural rhythms. Panchshil’s construction expertise allows us to build quickly, precisely, and with long-term integrity.
The result is a portfolio in which each property has its own identity, yet all carry Ventive’s hallmark clarity, restraint, and sense of place.
Your partnership with Marriott is expanding rapidly. What makes it strategically powerful?
Our partnership with Marriott is built on trust, consistent delivery, and shared ambition. It began with the Courtyard by Marriott Pune, which quickly became a benchmark for design and operational excellence.
As we now expand with seven new hotels, the partnership works because it is long-term, quality-driven and grounded in a history of consistent performance.
Ventive posted strong revenue and EBITDA growth. What’s driving this momentum?
The momentum comes from deliberate structural choices. A design-led portfolio commands strong ADR and RevPAR premiums.
Disciplined operations, an asset-focused approach, and a people-first culture have strengthened margins and ensured consistency across the organisation.
As lifestyle luxury becomes crowded, what is the Ventive signature?
Ventive’s signature is defined by a simple principle: we build ecosystems, not individual hotels.
Our distinctiveness rests on three pillars:
1. Design and architecture as long-term assets
Every space is built with Panchshil’s structural integrity and design precision.
2. Experiences shaped by culture and context
Nothing we build is generic. Each hotel is anchored in its sense of place.
3. A people-first operational philosophy
We design operations that elevate our teams and guests alike.
This combination of architectural credibility, cultural depth, and human-centred service gives Ventive a unique place in the landscape. We don’t just build lifestyle-luxury hotels—we create cultural environments rooted in design, strengthened by community, and sustained by decades of experience.
