Carlson in Inn-dia

Hubert Joly loves to share his “bicycle theory”: “When you are on a bicycle and you try to stand still, you lose balance,” he says. “When you are moving, you can adjust your course.”

Joly is CEO and president of Minnetonka-based Carlson, the hospitality and travel company that already has more than 1,000 hotels in 77 countries. But Joly, who assumed his current post two years ago, is taking the 72-year-old company for more than a leisurely spin. His plans bring to mind something like the Tour de France, but the setting is on another continent.

Earlier this year, Joly announced that Carlson would grow its portfolio by 50 percent, to more than 1,500 hotels by 2015. The largest percentage of that growth—50-plus hotels—will be in India, where the company intends to roughly triple its number of properties in the next three years.

Carlson is not alone on this ride. Starwood, Choice, Marriott, Hyatt, Intercontinental, and Hilton are among the global hospitality businesses planning to increase their presence in India. Together, they will open well over 100 new hotels in the next five years in major centers of tourism and business, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

But have they ever heard of Siliguri, Guwahati, or Durgapur? Carlson has.

Domestic Travel Drives Growth

India’s gross domestic product grew 6.5 percent last year, compared to China’s 8.7 percent. India’s population of 1.2 billion is a close second to China’s 1.3 billion. But for Carlson, India is bigger than China.

India is host to two-thirds of Carlson’s hotels in Asia. Of the international hotel chains operating in India, Carlson has the largest number of properties there: 28. Carlson is second only to the Mumbai-based Taj Hotels, Resorts, and Palaces, which has about 60 properties in India. The Minnesota company doesn’t enjoy the same strong position in China, where it has nine hotels, and plans to open 11 more by 2015.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel, a subsidiary that Joly led for four years before taking over in 2008 as Carlson’s CEO, is the largest travel management company in India, with a 17 percent share of the market.