Boutique resorts with celebrity chefs: For the uber-rich bored with luxury stays

It also has a luxury restaurant that only serves plated locally sourced food and seats just 16 guests at a time, like a Michelin-starred restaurant would. This boutique luxury resort charges a minimum of about ₹40,000 per night. And yet, Amaya, about two hours by road from Chandigarh, finds more than enough guests.

Today’s ultra-rich holidayers are not averse to splurging on intimate, high-end boutique resorts, where exclusivity meets luxury with fewer than 50 rooms and meals curated by high-profile chefs.

Deepak Gupta, who owns Amaya Homes, worked in the corporate sector in senior consulting roles before embarking on his dream project. Amaya’s villa rentals are steep, starting at ₹37,000 and going up to ₹75,000 per night (not including taxes). A private villa for a group of six people will leave you dearer by ₹1.23 lakh.

Such properties are redefining luxury vacationing in India. The allure? Small-scale investments with high returns. New-age hoteliers such as Gupta are looking to capitalise on the growing demand for bespoke experiences.

A 12-villa hideaway on Goa’s Varca beach fits the same bill.

What started as a redevelopment project for the Binani Cement family in Varca on a family-owned land spread over three acres with access to the beach is scheduled to launch on 1 November. Room rates are upwards of ₹50,000 per night.

Shradha Binani, one of the business’ founders, is not in any hurry to reap profits. The 12-room Amaraanth resort in Goa will have celebrity chef Ritu Dalmia as its culinary curator.

“We began the project in 2022 with the idea that discerning travellers in the country began to take time off and spend on wellness for themselves during the pandemic. Places like Goa became popular haunts for them. But there was something missing in the luxury travel experience for the well-heeled traveller," Binani told Mint.

“Most of them found that five-star hotels and resorts lacked personalisation and were underwhelming. This is the gap in the market which we wanted to plug, and created something that was different from the cookie-cutter five-star hotel experience. We were creating a destination within a destination and made a property where people can indulge in themselves."

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Navneet Nagpal, principal consultant at Gurugram-based Spectra Hospitality Services, which worked on the Amaraanth project and has about a dozen others coming up, said there is growing interest from second and third generation scions of business families who want to step away from traditional ventures to build such projects.

Several of these boutique luxury resorts are located in remote spots or near major cities where land tends to be cheaper. In some cases, the investors already own the parcel of land on which they want to build their boutique resorts—which can cost ₹50-70 crore, with development expenses of about ₹1.2 crore per room for a 13,500 sq.ft. space.

The moneyed millennials

Boutique resorts typically attract the elite with stays that are more focused on experiences, and sometimes featuring partnerships with high-profile chefs.

“These boutique properties are finding consumers in experience-driven millennials and Gen-Zers. They don’t want a regular hotel room and have high disposable incomes," said Achin Khanna, managing partner, strategic advisory for hospitality consultancy Hotelivate.

Khanna also owns and runs Anamiva Goa, an art-themed resort with 22 rooms.

These luxury boutique resorts are very different from private villas available on platforms like Airbnb. Airbnb style villa guests pay ₹50,000 a night for a 3-4 bedroom villa, while a boutique resort charges ₹25,000-50,000 per room for a night’s stay.

Hotelier Himmat Anand, founder of boutique hotel chain Tree of Life resorts and pet-focused vacation brand A Dog’s Story, said forthcoming properties in the high-end luxury resort business will be primarily in hilly regions such as Himachal Pradesh and Coorg.

“The wealth being generated in the country is phenomenal. Earlier the notion was that luxury is only the domain of the millionaires. Today there are people in their 30s and 40s who aren’t necessarily millionaires but have those same behaviours and find it necessary to brag on social media or to their friends. Their aspirations need to be satisfied, at whatever cost it may be. That is why resorts like these are doing well," Anand said.

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Khanna added that another factor drawing this new crop of hotel owners building such niche resorts is that they pay 35-40% less towards affiliations with larger hotel management companies or for brand compliances. The size and scale of branded resorts tends to be larger too.

Khanna expects more such boutique resorts to come up in the Himalayas, Goa, Sindhudurg, Assam and Coorg, among other locations.

Companies like The Postcard Hotels, Tamara, Storii by ITC, Niramaya, and a host of other unbranded properties owned by single owners are finding success in this model.

Boutique. Not branded.

Spectra Hospitality is currently consulting on a 30-40 room luxury boutique resort in Ranthambore with an average room rate of ₹60,000-70,000 per night. It is involved in several upcoming projects that have 50-60 rooms in places like Shillong, Cuttack, Jaipur, and Varanasi.

The consulting firm is also developing a 35-room luxury property in Valpoi in North Goa near a wildlife sanctuary, and a 50-room resort in Tadoba, south of Nagpur. Similar projects are being planned for Kumbhalgarh in Bhopal, Bareilly, Bhimtal, Mukteshwar, and Almora.

“If it’s at the right location and the investment is ideal, without having to invest in land, monetisation like this can provide a 18-22% yield within just 4-5 years," Nagpal said of Spectra Hospitality. “There must be about 300-400 such boutique properties coming up in the country and this number is pegged to grow since these are quick turnaround hotel assets."

The story is not different for Naaz Hotel Consultants in Delhi. From having just one or two such leads a year, the company is now handling four or five such projects. Ishaan Koul, the company’s director, said the business has never looked better for boutique luxury resorts.

“With people working long hours, with double income families, there is a huge need for wellness. That’s what these resorts are catering to," he said. “Before the pandemic, these developments were far fewer, but now they have taken off in a big way."

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Naaz has completed one such resort a few hours from Delhi.

All of this development makes sense as India’s hospitality sector is growing at a fast clip, fueled by strong domestic demand, favourable demographics, and increasing investments, while supply struggles to keep pace.

According to ratings agency CareEdge, the domestic hospitality industry’s revenue per available room—RevPAR, a key metric hoteliers use—grew 14% in 2023-24 and is projected to rise by another 8-9% in FY25.

Though standalone boutique resorts are not counted in the organised hotel supply, a few hundred such hotels exist in the country, according to the firm. India has around 200,000 branded hotel rooms.

The big guns

Bigger hospitality-industry players are also not far behind in chasing this opportunity.

Take Radisson Hotel Group, for instance. In response to the changing market dynamics, the company in India introduced the Radisson Individuals and Radisson Individuals Retreats brands under the boutique properties segment about two years ago.

Nikhil Sharma, Radisson’s India managing director and area head, said that the company has set a goal of opening 20 new properties this year, with a fifth of these being leisure resorts, like at Jawai in Rajasthan and Nainital in Uttarakhand. “India’s average daily rate for organised hotels is about ₹7,000. Exclusive resorts are able to command anything upwards of ₹10,000 a night," he said.

Marriott International has tied up with Lohono Stays, a luxury holiday home rental company that is now part of Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy.

Last year, Kolkata-based Ambuja Neotia group acquired Himmat Anand’s hotel ownership and management company Tree of Life Resorts and Hotels in a deal pegged at ₹70-80 crore. Since then, Indian Hotels Company Ltd-owned Taj Hotels has been managing the brand.

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