by Vijaylakshmi
Started by two chartered accountant friends — Rohit and Ramit Sethi — with hardly any exposure to hospitality and hoteliering four years ago, Seclude Hotels Home Style now has 20 villas and boutique resorts under their branded operations today. These properties are largely confined to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, with a smaller presence in Kerala and Goa.
Having gained market knowledge and created a successful operational model for Seclude Hotels Home Style in the villa and boutique resort space, the Sethis are now eyeing to explore opportunities in the branded heritage home space in a big way.
Speaking to ETHospitalityWorld, Ramit Sethi, co-founder of the company said that there are so many heritage properties dotting the length and breadth of the country lying unutilised or underutilised or even abandoned by their owners which can be put to good use by converting them as heritage home stays.
“We are leaning towards heritage home space quite aggressively,” Sethi said. He said that they will be developing ‘Heritage Homes’ a dedicated sub-brand under Seclude Hotels.
“We feel that heritage homes suit our model and consider it a good area of growth,” he added.
As a first step, the company will rebrand a few of their existing properties which meet the heritage tag to the Heritage Home brand, Sethi said. These include their property in Shimla, which is a 155-year old heritage property; their Goa villa, which is an old Portuguese bungalow; Seclude Taradale near Ramgarh, which is a British-era bungalow; and Seclude Nahan Bantony cottage, which is a princely bungalow belonged to Sirmur royalty.
Sethi said that they are open to work with discerning owners of such heritage properties to get the assets refurbished and renovated to convert them into branded heritage homes.
“The landlords have to invest in the refurbishments, but we can help them execute it with the help of experts,” he said.
Sethi said that they started Seclude four years ago because of their passion for mountain homes and they have been able to build a successful “cash positive, profitable and growing” company because their thought process and operating model was different from typical hoteliers.
“We are a fully operating company. We manage the entire villa and the entire expense of running the villa is on us. We take villas on a 6 years lease which is the standard model,” he said. He said that while most of the players in the private villa space are mere marketing companies, Seclude is a “full management company.”
“By the fourth month, all our units become cash positive,” Sethi claimed.
They employ suitable hands from the local community around the units after due training and upgrading their skills. The company invests a lot on technology which enables controlling a lot of day to day functions remotely from a central location, Sethi added.
