Born and raised in Mumbai, Vinay completed his post-graduation from ESSEC Business School, Paris where he majored in Hospitality Real Estate, and Development. With 16+ years of experience in the hospitality segment, Vinay was earlier associated with The Indian Hotels Company Limited (Taj Group of Hotels) as Corporate Director – Development and Hilton Hotels as Director, Development – India. His primary role at both was to expand the brands’ portfolios, a responsibility that he carries forth at SaffronStays – securing and sealing well-appointed luxurious homes and villas.
Today with us, he shares insights on his hospitality journey, the growth of SaffronStays, hospitality trends, stakeholders, Indian hospitality market and more.
- How has the industry evolved with SaffronStays as a first-mover?
While vacation homes have long been built across the country, the idea of monetising them through branded operators has been in effect for just the best part of a decade. It was the pandemic that significantly accelerated the growth and evolution of this segment. SaffronStays has consciously and constantly evolved since its inception, pivoting from an aggregator (Airbnb-like model) to a premium marketing distributor to now being a full- fledged technology and service driven vacation home rental with an intent to provide a ‘hassle free’ experience to guests, Home owners and travel trade partners.
- What has been the growth and expansion scale of SaffronStays?
From our first home in Matheran in 2016, SaffronStays has now grown its portfolio to 200+ live homes with an additional 100 more in its pipeline. We now add about 15-20 homes every month and launched 74 homes in the last six months. We have doubled our live and pipeline portfolio in the last year alone and moved from being a Maharashtra-centric brand to a pan-India one by significantly improving our presence across key sectors such as Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. We continue to look at significant growth in markets like Goa and this has resulted in a revenue increase from ₹14.5 Cr in FY20 to ₹30 Cr. In FY22. Furthermore, we expect to cross the ₹50 Cr mark in FY23
- What are the views on sophistication of the industry and market awareness, including receptiveness of all stakeholders?
We have understood the widespread market awareness of the vacation home segment as a genuine stay option for short breaks, celebratory occasions and offsite corporate travels, and even a preferred choice for travel agents and trade partners. This means that we recognise the need to continuously improve our offerings and services to meet the expectations of today’s consumers. We have adopted a ‘house of brands’ approach which allows us to offer differentiated services keeping in mind the uniqueness of our homes, making them the demand generator in itself. Our brand architecture also allows us to utilise the right promotional tactics for each home while remaining commercially efficient from an investment and earnings perspective. Our homes within the Signature by SaffronStays portfolio provide a consistent, uber-luxe level of offering, something that is regularly appreciated by our guests and Home Owners, and that in turn, has helped enhance our brand equity through this growth stage. Our continuous efforts to improve, be it on the marketing, technology or services fronts have received consistent positive feedback from our guests, Home Owners and travel trade partners.
- What are the trends in supply that you’ve witnessed?
Up until recently we were seeing a consistent increase in branded supply through independently-owned homes owned by HNIs wanting to monetise the same. While this shall continue to be the foundation of our supply in the near future, the significant increase in demand for vacation homes has witnessed a spark in the proactive development of vacation home projects across the country. Such projects are headed by regional and national level developers seeking to capitalise on the acquisition appetite of real estate buyers who in turn seek dynamic ROIs as compared to that currently witnessed in metro residential developments. The inclination towards larger vacation home projects is further accentuated by reasonably lower capex investments requirements as compared to traditional hotels and resorts, and the ability to sell individual homes that form a part of the project, hence allowing a developer to recover his investments faster.
The above trends shall also bring to the fore the fractional ownership model where individuals will be able to invest in parts of a project, here an individual villa, and enjoy the benefits of enjoying a second home in a resort like environment while earning from their investment.
This should result in larger vacation home projects becoming more common in key markets across the country resulting in a boom in supply over the next five to seven years. This alongside the yet-to-be-tapped existing supply should result in the current branded vacation home inventory of approximately 1000+ homes in the country growing multifold over the next decade, making this segment the next blue ocean within the hospitality and tourism industry.
- Kindly share the scope you see and the future with SaffronStays?
Despite the accelerated growth and sophistication of the segment, the branded/commercial vacation home space is still nascent in our country. We will continue to sustainably build our supply so as to meet with the rapidly growing demand in key markets across the country. Our aspiration is to be a ₹100 Cr company within the next couple of years and are confident in meeting the portfolio growth requirements to do so.
