Indian hotel industry optimistic about economy

Mumbai: India was ranked fifth in the world for hotels with the best business outlook, while Greece ranked last, according to a survey carried out by online travel site, TripAdvisor.

Nikhil Ganju, country manager, TripAdvisor India said, "Most survey results for India cue a positive industry sentiment. In fact we designed an industry scale based on survey response on economic and business outlook of properties, which indicate better than average business health for India, which ranks second in APAC region and fifth in the world." He added that another highlight of the survey reveals that though Indian hoteliers recognize the importance of social and mobile marketing. ``They are slow at adopting their use to connect with current and potential customers, compared to global numbers."

According to the report, 50% of Asia-Pacific respondents reported optimism about the economy for the remainder of the year believing the economy would improve. It added that hoteliers in Asia Pacific, North America and Latin America were twice as likely to report being profitable in the last six months than hoteliers in the EMEA(Europe Middle East and Africa) region who are the least optimistic about the future. The report said that India showed unbridled optimism with the highest proportion of businesses in APAC that expect the economy to improve in the next 6 months. Sixty-six percent respondents support the claim that the economy will improve a little /lot in the second half of 2012, the survey said. The positive business outlook also seems to be evident from the staffing plans in second half of 2012, as India ranks highest globally among all countries surveyed, for staff turnover based on increased staff levels. While most respondents in APAC reported that there would be no change in their staffing levels in the next 6 months, respondents in India were more likely to increase their staff (39%), followed by Thailand (31%) and Indonesia (30%).

The TripAdvisor Industry Index collected more than 25,000 responses from hoteliers around the globe. It is the world's largest hotel survey, said a release issued by TripAdvisor. The Asia Pacific region accounted for slightly over a fifth of the entire sample and India formed the largest segment of this region with just over 1,500 respondents, making it the largest hotel survey in India as well, it added.