“The capital of the world is in 23 different places”- this was the tagline used by the General Electric Company when it expanded its business in 1995. It is very valid for India as well. India is emerging as one of the leading economies of the world and the rate of growth in every sector of the economy is immense. The hotel industry is very sensitive to economic cycles and is therefore intrinsically linked to the state of the economy. At present, there are over 462 hotels in the country and the total number of rooms is around 58612. Hotel room supply has increased in 2010-11 by 15% while the nationwide occupancy has increased by 1.7%. Although the growth in supply is a double digit figure but the growth in occupancy signals the fact there …show more content…

(Mehta Gautam, December 17, 2003)
“In the brand perspective of an individual hotel, brand identity becomes an individual property concept, generally reflecting the goods and services uniquely bundled by the management of the hotel” (Olsen et all, 2004). Brand valuation can be done by three approaches- cost based approach depending upon the total of all costs incurred to establish the brand(Keller, 1998); market based approach based on the amount for which a brand can be sold in the market(Government of Japan, 2002) and the income based approach. As Cravens and Guilding maintain, by looking at the income that can be attributed to the brand, one can avoid the majority of the shortcomings that are associated with the cost based approach. This approach is also called the brand price premium approach.
Hotel services are more complex to position as they involve tangible services like room comfort or location and intangible services like privacy. The extension of the marketing mix is essential, best portrayed by Booms and Bitner’s seven Ps: product, place, price and promotion with the addition of process, physical evidence and people. There are always three groups of customers in the market- those that are completely loyal to the brand; those that are loyal but may use other brands and those that do not buy your brand and use only other brands. Garlick suggested the group that