The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) is an Indian

hospitality company The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and drink service, event planning, theme parks, travel and tourism. It includes hotels, tourism agencies, restaurants and bars. Sectors ...

that manages a portfolio of hotels, resorts, jungle safaris, palaces, spas and in-flight catering services. The company is part of India's Tata Group. IHCL was founded in 1902 by Jamsetji Tata and is headquartered in Mumbai where its flagship hotel Taj Mahal Palace Hotel is also located. The company's hotel chains include

Taj Taj may refer to: Buildings *Taj Mahal, a medieval mausoleum in the Indian city of Agra *Taj Palace, an Abbasid palace in medieval Baghdad *Taj-ul-Masajid, mosque in Bhopal * Taj building, Nowshera, Pakistan *Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, inte ...

, SeleQtions,

Vivanta Vivanta is an Indian hotel chain established in September 2010. The brand is a part of the Indian Hotels Company Limited, a subsidiary of the TATA Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. E ...

, and

Ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

History

The company was founded by Tata Group founder and industrialist

Jamshedji Tata Jamsetji (Jamshedji) Nusserwanji Tata (3 March 1839 – 19 May 1904) was an Indian pioneer industrialist who founded the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate company. Named the greatest philanthropist of the last century by several poll ...

. He incorporated Indian Hotels Company Limited in 1899 and registered in 1902. The first hotel of the company was opened — The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in

Colaba Colaba (; or ISO: Kolābā) is a part of the city of Mumbai, India. It is one of the four peninsulas of Mumbai while the other three are Worli, Bandra and Malabar Hill. During Portuguese rule in the 16th century, the island was known as Kolbhat ...

neighbourhood of Mumbai was opened in 1903. It was the first five star hotel in India with modern elevators and Russian carpets. In 1980 the

Taj Group Taj may refer to: Buildings *Taj Mahal, a medieval mausoleum in the Indian city of Agra *Taj Palace, an Abbasid palace in medieval Baghdad *Taj-ul-Masajid, mosque in Bhopal * Taj building, Nowshera, Pakistan *Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, inte ...

opened their first international hotels: the Taj Sheba Hotel in Sana'a, Yemen and the Taj Pamodzi in

Lusaka Lusaka (; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was ab ...

, Zambia. IHCL entered the Sri Lankan market with Taj Exotica Bentota and Taj Samudra in Colombo. In joint venture with

G. V. Krishna Reddy Gunapati Venkata Krishna Reddy (born 22 March 1937) is a philanthropist and entrepreneur. GVK Reddy is the founder and chairman of GVK Group, a business conglomerate with a predominant focus on infrastructure development. GVK Reddy also heads ...

, Taj Hotels form Taj GVK. IHCL entered Middle Eastern market with opening a hotel in Dubai — the Taj Palace Hotel Dubai. Next year the company opened three more hotels — the Regent Hotel in Mumbai, Rawal-Kot in Jaisalmer and

Usha Kiran Palace Usha Kiran Palace is a heritage hotel, adjacent to Jai Vilas Mahal on a 9-acre land in Gwalior built by the royal Scindia dynasty of the Marathas. The management of the five-star hotel is done by Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces. The hotel makes ...

in Gwalior. Secretary Clinton Is Greeted By Taj Coromandel Employees

The company planned to open hotels in

Jamshedpur Jamshedpur (, ) or Tatanagar is the largest and most populous city in Jharkhand and the first planned industrial city in India. It is a Notified Area Council and Municipal Corporation and also the headquarter of the East Singhbhum district. It ...

and

Ranchi Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...

. Taj Surya was opened in

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

and later renamed as

. IHCL also operates TajSATS Air Catering, in a joint venture with SATS (formerly known as Singapore Airport Terminal Services). In May 2017, IHCL announced it was moving all of its hotels under a unique brand, Taj Hotels Palaces Resorts Safaris. The brands Vivanta by Taj and Gateway were merged into a single business unit. During the summer of 2017,

Cyrus Mistry Cyrus Pallonji Mistry (4 July 1968 – 4 September 2022) was an Indian businessman. He was the chairman of the Tata Group, an Indian business conglomerate, from 2012 to 2016. He was the sixth chairman of the group, and only the second (af ...

stated that some of the group's latest costly acquisitions (Sea Rock Hotel, The Pierre in New York,

Taj Boston The Newbury Boston is a historic luxury hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. It opened in 1927 as The Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The property is a Boston landmark and anchors fashionable Newbury Street and the picturesque Boston Public Garden, located in the ...

) "destroyed the economic value of the company". The unique brand decision was reversed in 2018. In April 2018, the group opened its first location in Saudi Arabia through a partnership with the Umm al-Qura construction company. In April 2019, IHCL launched the hotel brand SeleQtions with 12 location openings. In May 2019, IHCL signed a strategic partnership with

GIC Private Limited GIC Private Limited is a sovereign wealth fund in Singapore that manages its foreign reserves. Established by the Government of Singapore in 1981 as the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, its mission is to preserve and enhance the ...

(Singapore's sovereign wealth fund) to acquire 600 million dollars' worth of hotel assets over three years. Vivanta_Kolkata_EM_Bypass

Brands

Notable Hotels

Gallery

File:Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai (Bombay).jpg, alt=, Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai File:Hotel Taj Connemara, Chennai, India.jpg, alt=,

Taj Connemara Taj Connemara, Chennai is a five-star hotel in Chennai, India. It is a heritage hotel in Chennai. Classified under the Taj Group's business hotels section, the 127-year-old hotel is considered the oldest hotel in the city. History The proper ...

in Chennai File:Belvadere Road 'Taj Bengal' (1).jpg, alt=,

Taj Bengal Taj Bengal is an Indian luxury hotel in Kolkata, operated by the Taj Hotels and designed by American architect Bob Fox. The hotel was inaugurated on 10 October 1989 by Jyoti Basu, who was then the Chief Minister of West Bengal. The hotel was ...

in Kolkata File:Taj Falaknuma Garden.jpg, alt=, Taj Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad File:Exterior view of Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi.jpg, alt=, Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi

References

External links