Taj Hotels

Taj Hotels is a chain of luxury hotels and a subsidiary of the Indian Hotels Company Limited,[1] headquartered in Mumbai, India.[2] Incorporated by Jamsetji Tata in 1902,[3][4][5] the company is a part of the Tata Group, one of India's largest business conglomerates. The company employed over 20,000 people in the year 2010.[6][7]

Taj Hotels
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryHospitality
Founded1902 (1902)
FounderJamsetji Tata
HeadquartersExpress Towers, Nariman Point,
Mumbai, Maharashtra
,
India
Number of locations
100+ hotels
Key people
  • Natarajan Chandrasekaran
    (Chairman)
  • Puneet Chhatwal
    (MD & CEO)
ServicesHotels and resorts
ParentIndian Hotels Company Limited
Websitewww.tajhotels.com

As of 2020, the company operates a total of 100 plus hotels and hotel-resorts, with 84 across India and 16 in other countries, including Bhutan, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, UAE, UK, USA and Zambia.[5]

History
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata (1839–1904), founder of Taj Hotels.

Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the Tata Group, opened the Taj Mahal Palace, a hotel in Mumbai (formerly called Bombay) overlooking the Arabian Sea, on 16 December 1903. It was the first Taj property and the first Taj hotel. There are several anecdotal stories about why Tata opened the Taj hotel. According to a story, he decided to open the hotel after an incident involving racial discrimination at the Watson's Hotel in Mumbai, where he was refused entry as the hotel permitted only Europeans.[8] Hotels that accepted only European guests were very common across British India then. According to another story, he opened the hotel when one of his friends expressed disgust over the hotels that were present in Bombay then. But a more plausible reason was advanced by Lovat Fraser, a close friend of the Tata and one of the early directors of the IHCL group, that the idea had long been in his mind and that he had made a study on the subject. He did not have any desire to own a hotel but he wanted to attract people to India and to improve Bombay. It is said that Jamsetji Tata had travelled to places like London, Paris, Berlin, and Düsseldorf to arrange for materials and pieces of art, furniture and other interior decor for his hotel.[9]

The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai is the first hotel of Taj, opened in the year 1903.

In 1974, the group opened India's first international five-star deluxe beach resort, the Fort Aguada Beach Resort in Goa. In 1970s, the Taj Group also began its business in metropolitan hotels, opening the five-star deluxe hotel, Taj Coromandel in Chennai, in 1974, acquiring an equity interest and operating contract for the Taj President (now Vivanta by Taj – President), a business hotel in Mumbai, in 1977, and also opening the Taj Mahal Hotel in Delhi in 1978.

The group has been converting royal palaces in India into luxury hotels since the 1970s. The first palace to be converted into a Taj luxury hotel was the Lake Palace in Udaipur, in 1971.[10] Other examples include the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad and Nadesar Palace in Varanasi.

Taj Fort Aguada Beach Resort Hotel in Goa.

In 1980, the Taj Group opened its first hotel outside India, the Taj Sheba Hotel in Sana'a, in Yemen and in the late 1980s, acquired interests in the St. James' Court Hotel (now comprising Taj 51 Buckingham Gate Suites and Residences and St. James' Court, A Taj Hotel) in London. In 1984, the Taj Group acquired, under a license agreement, each of the Taj West End in Bangalore, Taj Connemara, in Chennai and Savoy Hotel in Ooty. The five-star deluxe hotel, Taj Bengal in Kolkata, was opened in the year 1989, and with this, the Taj Group became the only hotel chain in India with a presence in the six major metropolitan cities of India, namely Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

Concurrently with the expansion of its luxury hotel chain in the major metropolitan cities, the Taj Group also expanded its business hotels division in the major metropolitan and large secondary cities in India. During the 1990s, the Taj Group continued to expand its geographic and market coverage in India. It developed specialized operations (such as wildlife lodges) and consolidated its position in established markets through the upgrading of existing properties and development of new properties. Taj also set up the Taj Kerala Hotels and Resorts Limited in the early 1990s along with the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation.[11]

In 2005, The Pierre in New York City was acquired.[12]

On 9 March 2022, Taj Exotica Resort & Spa, The Palm, Dubai, was opened. The hotel is the recent addition to The Taj Hotel group. Other properties of the group include Taj Jumeirah Lakes Towers Dubai and Taj Dubai.[13][14][15]

Notable hotels
Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur.
Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi.

Recognition

Ten hotels of the Taj Group are members of the Leading Hotels of the World.[16] Two hotels of the Taj Group, namely Rambagh Palace in Jaipur and the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, were ranked in 2013 by Condé Nast Traveler among its "Top 100 Hotels and Resorts in the World".[17] Condé Nast Traveler also ranked the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai as number 13 on its list of "Gold Standard Hotels" in 2014.[18]

Other ventures
  • Institute of Hotel Management, Aurangabad – IHCL has been operating the Institute of Hotel Management at Aurangabad since 1993. The institute offers a four-year degree, designed with the help of faculty from the hospitality background with an affiliation to the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom.
  • Taj Air – IHCL operates Taj Air, an air charter company.

See also
  •  Hotels portal
  •  Companies portal

References
  1. "IHCL to reserve Taj tag only for luxury units – Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  2. "Corporate Office". Corporate. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
  3. "THE INDIAN HOTELS COMPANY LIMITED". Zauba Corp.
  4. "Contact Information" (select "Corporate Office"). Taj Hotels. Retrieved 14 November 2012. "Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces Oxford House 15/17 N.F. Road Apollo Bunder Mumbai 400,001 India"
  5. "The Indian Hotels Company (IHCL)". tata.co.in. Tata group. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  6. "Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces: Private Company Information – BusinessWeek". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Retrieved 15 September 2010.
  7. "Crowne Plaza, Dow Corning & Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces". The Economic Times. 21 June 2010. Retrieved 15 September 2010.
  8. "From Parsee priests to profits: say hello to Tata – Asia, World". The Independent. 1 February 2007. Archived from the original on 26 May 2022. Retrieved 15 September 2010.
  9. "Hotel Association of India" (PDF). Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  10. Walsh, John (8 May 2015). "Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur: Raj before beauty, but this luxury is". The Independent. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  11. "About Us". Tajhotels.com.
  12. "The Pierre: New York's Taj". The Economic Times. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  13. "Taj Exotica Resort opens on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah with a 70-metre-long swimming pool". The National. 9 March 2022. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  14. Staff Writer; TradeArabia. "325-room Taj Exotica Resort & Spa, The Palm opens in Dubai". www.zawya.com. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  15. "Sonu Koithara has been appointed Executive Chef at Taj Exotica Resort & Spa, The Palm, Dubai". Hospitality Net. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  16. "Hotel List". Lhw.com. Leading Hotels of The World. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  17. "Top 100 Hotels & Resorts in the World". Condé Nast Traveler. 15 October 2013. Archived from the original on 8 September 2014. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
  18. "GOLD STANDARD HOTELS 2014". Cntraveller.com. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
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