The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts has nearly doubled its operating footprint to 15 hotels since Brookfield acquired the company, with 10 more properties in development — including the brand's first project outside India, a 546-key resort on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah planned for 2028.

CEO Anuraag Bhatnagar, speaking on the Suite Success podcast with host Katie Cline, laid out the numbers behind what he calls "Leela 2.0": the portfolio stood at eight hotels when Brookfield bought it from the founding family roughly seven years ago. The Dubai asset will carry 361 hotel keys, 182 private residences and three villas on 23 acres of beachfront land, with ten food-and-beverage venues.

The demographic shift driving the business

The most consequential data point Bhatnagar cited is the collapse in guest age. Pre-Covid, the average Leela guest was 50 to 51 years old. For the last three years, the median age has held between 38 and 39 — a drop of nearly a decade and a half.

He tied the shift to India's macro picture. India's median age is 29. Affluent households and ultra-high-net-worth individuals are growing 14 to 16% year on year, he said. Pre-Covid, roughly 70 million Indian households could afford luxury consumption on annual income; surveys now project more than 200 million such households by 2030. Leela sees multi-generational travel, larger villas, pool-villa bookings and rising suite consumption as direct results.

F&B as a distribution channel

Food and beverage now accounts for nearly 40% of Leela's business, and Bhatnagar framed restaurants and bars explicitly as an acquisition funnel: 50 to 65% of F&B business comes from non-residents, and younger luxury consumers "enter the world of Leela through food and beverage" before becoming hotel guests. The strategy includes India's first speakeasy bar, ZLB at Leela Palace Bangalore — consistently voted among Asia's top 10 and top 20 bars, he said — plus the recently opened rooftop Amber Terrace in Jaipur.

International guests make up nearly 50% of occupancy, a one-to-one mix with domestic Indian travelers that Bhatnagar cited as justification for the Dubai expansion into a market where 30 of the world's top luxury hotel brands already compete.

Service architecture and measurable outcomes

Leela's operational centerpiece is the Leela Palace Service — effectively a butler program built on eight defined touchpoints per guest journey, from in-room check-in and checkout to guest-history-driven amenities and children's gifts. Palace Service Associates share WhatsApp contact details with guests; repeat customers bypass reservation systems and book directly through them. Bhatnagar called these associates "some of the biggest ambassadors" for the brand.

The company claims a Net Promoter Score of 86 — which Bhatnagar said is the highest in Asia Pacific and among the highest globally — and a ranking this year as the world's second-best hotel brand by Travel + Leisure, after five consecutive years in the top tier. These are company claims, not audited figures.

Wellness is the next revenue pillar. The Ojasya program has moved through nutrition into therapeutic wellness and now longevity. Concrete investments include an 18,000-square-foot wellness zone opening at Leela Palace Bangalore, a newly acquired Coorg resort with 27,000 square feet of wellness space, and a forthcoming Jaisalmer desert resort with roughly 200,000 square feet of integrated wellness facilities.

The pipeline

Beyond Dubai, the ten-property development slate includes three wildlife-sanctuary hotels, the Jaisalmer desert resort opening end of this year or early next, Leela's first branded residences in Mumbai, a 13-acre property on Dal Lake in Srinagar, a hotel in Agra less than a kilometer from the Taj Mahal, and a property in Ayodhya. Bhatnagar said Leela would consider further international opportunities "at the right stage."

The Coorg acquisition illustrates another monetization angle: 70% of guests there opt for an all-inclusive package covering the entire journey from departure point to return. Leela has even built two curated bungalow rest stops on the four-to-five-hour drive back to Bangalore — with Leela coffee, snacks and back massages — to extend the experience beyond the property boundary.

Bhatnagar, who previously held senior roles at Oberoi, Starwood and Marriott, said the post-acquisition playbook combined the founders' four-decade service DNA with Brookfield's capital, global distribution and a balanced-scorecard commercial discipline. Dubai, where he is reviewing design development next week, will test whether that formula travels.