Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc got a 104-room hotel up and running in India in less than 12 months, bypassing years of red tape by rebranding an existing property instead of building a new one.
Capitalising on distress in the Indian hospitality sector, international operators such as Starwood and France's Accor SA are teaming up with investors to acquire hotels from debt-laden domestic owners and reopen them under their own corporate banners.
Such conversions can help global players expand more quickly in a country where hotel construction has slowed since the downturn in 2008 as developers shun capital-intensive projects often delayed by bureaucratic and regulatory hurdles.
"This is the first time we are seeing a reasonable number of assets on the market at the same time," said Gaurav Bhushan, chief development and investment officer for Asia Pacific at Accor. "There have been hotel assets for sale in the past but they have been more sporadic," he said.