My journey, I meet hundreds of people every week, absolutely. And what is amazing in the job that I do in hospitality, you get to hear people's stories. But all these stories, they make you who you are.
So we think India is seeking the world, but the world is seeking India, particularly when it comes to hotel business. Because there are a lot of things happening under this hotel business, and we have the man who is winning with his brand and with his business in India.
And with your team, of course. So let's welcome Dimitris Manikis in India. I hope you're enjoying India.
Yes, I mean, come on, it's my seventh visit this year.
Seventh visit this year. Yes.
I'm sure your business is winning in India.
No, no. And the fact that they're willing makes it easier for me to come back because I love this country.
Absolutely. Thank you so much. But why seven visits to India? I mean, I'm trying to know why the world is looking at India, particularly in hotel business, with so much love and passion.
Now is the golden opportunity of India. I believe this is India's golden decade, and it's Wyndham's golden decade in India as well. We've been here about 12 years now. We came to the party far, far later than our peers, but we came at the right time, at the time where Indian hospitality was growing, when new talent was coming in, when the infrastructure development was actually helping domestic tourism.
And when India started to play a bigger role, not just in hospitality but in the global scene, you had the BRICS event a couple of weeks ago. So India is the manufacturing gateway of the world. You look around, you know, I go around Delhi, I go around Gurgaon. This city, you know, they say New York City, that never sleeps.
Have you been to Gurgaon? Have you been to Delhi?
This city never sleeps. This is the back office of corporations, of businesses. I think this is the golden decade of India, and it's the first time, I believe, that it is for India to make or break.
It's you guys need to make a decision. This is our golden decade, and it's ours to grab. And that's why it's exciting for me to be here because I can see that opportunity right in front of me.
Particularly, let's talk about hotel business. What kind of expansion plans do you have? What brands? I hear you want to launch new brands in India. You're looking at partnerships in India. What all, how have you decided?
So look, first of all, we took a leap of faith and we brought franchise into India. Remember, this is a 70-80% managed market. This is where people manage hotels. And the other thing about India, and I'll come to Wyndham, this is the homeland of some of the most amazing brands in the world.
The Leelas, the Oberois, the Taj, you know, people like ITC, you know, it's just an amazing place. I mean, how can you come into a market like this? You come with humility, with humbleness, and you come with very steady steps.
But some of these brands are restricted to metropolis or cosmopolitan cities.
I knew you were going to ask me that. Why tier two?
Sometimes you start opportunistic and then you become strategic, right? We started with an opportunity, and the opportunity that we saw was the following.
A tier two city here in this country is a metro in many other countries. My country, the country I come from, is Greece. 9 million people. 9 million people is a tier two city in India.
So for us coming from Europe, we never thought tier two cities to be real tier two cities.
Factor is just the population, infrastructure.
Infrastructure plan. When your government came out with an infrastructure plan of what they're planning to do in the next 10 years, and it started about six, seven years ago, of what they're planning to do in India, we realized that this is the opportunity.
So is that a very big deciding factor? Let's say...
Ayodhya has a 100% airport. Udaipur has...
Follow the planes. Follow the planes. Follow the trains. Follow the automobiles. That's how tourism was created. If you cannot travel, if you cannot walk, if you cannot drive, and if you cannot take a train, how are you going to get to the destination?
But will you need partnerships in India? Here you're partnering with Signate and... you're doing your own brands. You launched Vienna House.
Yes, yes. Amazing brand. No, no, no. It's a three-four star brand. It's a lifestyle, design-led brand in the midscale.
We bought it in Europe about four or five years ago, and it's performing extremely well for us. And in terms of partnerships, you know the stories with partnerships in countries like India.
Again, I spoke about humbleness and humility. You come in with a huge respect of what people have already done, and you learn from them. You learn from the people who have done it. You learn from the people who've been successful. Yes, Wyndham is one of the biggest in the world, and we've got a great story and we've got great brands, but we come in a country that...
We didn't know the term. We didn't know what the term was. So we start building partnerships, we start building friendships, and we said, okay, you never walk alone, we'll do it together with others. Yes, we had a great team and we have a great team, they're developing what they need to develop, but at the same time through our partnerships we are creating some really great opportunities.
In the past few years here in this country, the amazing talent wanted a way to express themselves, wanted a place to grow, and that's why the white label operators... it was the third-party managers' question.
So you're open for white label 100%? Oh, that's exciting news. But how will you choose partners in India? That's very exciting news.
Traction, traction, traction, and trust.
Trust. You see a partner and you feel, you know what, that's a guy I could do business with.
Yeah. Any cities that you want to name in India that you are open for? Okay, I'm probably going to embarrass myself by pronouncing, but for...
No, no. I'll tell you what. I was in Varanasi.
That's the exact pronunciation.
My goodness. My goodness, how beautiful.
The spirituality. I want to introduce Varanasi to the world.
I want to do more in Ayodhya. I want to do more in Varanasi. But I said to my team this morning, I want to be in the metros. I want to be in Bangalore. I want to be in Mumbai. I want to be in Delhi. Yes, our story started in tier two and tier three, but our time has come now for tier one and the metros. We started a bit Christopher Columbus in reverse.
We went to tier two and tier three first, and now we are looking at the metros.
I think that's a great insight for a lot of people who want to enter at this point in business or expanding in India. But what do you think about competition in India, and what do you think are the Indian customers looking at?
Okay, there's no competition here. We're all peers. We all sit together. No, no, I'll give you an example.
A few years back, you had as many branded rooms, number of rooms here, as the city of Bangkok.
Think of this: 1.4 billion population. You had as many branded hotel rooms as the city of Bangkok.
Can you imagine what opportunity that gives to all of us? Is it Hilton, Marriott? I mean, these are all great brands. IHG, they're all friends of ours. We're all peers. We all have one common goal. Do we compete? I don't want to sound romantic. Yeah, of course we compete and we fight for a deal, but we all have a shared objective or one common objective.
We grow the business, we grow the industry, more people travel, everybody wins. And we all have a new objective, which is very... and I think your minister of tourism and the government actually points out very, very frequently recently.
Introduce India to the world.
I'm going to make a controversial statement. I think you guys are very selfish. You keep India to yourself.
Because in my country, Greece, we are 9 million people.
We made that clear. 9 million.
How many millions of tourists we get every year? 35 million.
35 million. You are 1.4 billion people and you get 10 million tourists including the NRIs. This is very selfish. This is very selfish.
But can we manage even half the number of tourists arriving in India? Half the population is going to be a...
No, no, I'm not talking about half. I'm talking about the 10 becomes 15 and 15 becomes 20. You are very selfish. Let the world know India. That's my message. Let the world know India.
Superb. So I think we started on this note about India, how India is seeking the world and the world is seeking India. I hope your efforts actually sort of connect the two. But let me also talk about one quick thing on Indian customers. So let's say when you're expanding in India, a lot is going to come from Indian customers alone.
