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| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Hospitality |
| Founded | 1902; 123 years ago (1902) |
| Founder | Jamsetji Tata |
| Headquarters | Express Towers, Nariman Point,, India |
Number of locations | 200+ hotels (according to their website) |
Key people |
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| Services | Hotels andresorts |
| Parent | Indian Hotels Company Limited |
| Website | www |
Taj Hotels is a chain of luxury hotels and a subsidiary of theIndian Hotels Company Limited,[1] headquartered inMumbai,India. Incorporated byJamsetji Tata in 1902,[2] the company is a part of theTata Group. The company employed over 20,000 people in the year 2010.[3][4]
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of theTata Group, opened theTaj Mahal Palace, a hotel in Mumbai (formerly called Bombay) overlooking theArabian Sea, on 16 December 1903. It was the first Taj property and the first Taj hotel. There are several anecdotal stories about why Tata opened the Taj hotel. According to a story, he decided to open the hotel after an incident involving racial discrimination at theWatson's Hotel in Mumbai, where he was refused entry as the hotel permitted only Europeans.[5] Hotels that accepted only European guests were very common acrossBritish India then. According to another story, he opened the hotel when one of his friends expressed disgust over the hotels that were present in Bombay then. But a more plausible reason was advanced by Lovat Fraser, a close friend of the Tata and one of the early directors of the IHCL group, that the idea had long been in his mind and that he had made a study on the subject. He did not have any desire to own a hotel but he wanted to attract people to India and to improve Bombay. Jamsetji Tata had travelled to places like London,Paris, Berlin, and Düsseldorf to arrange for materials and pieces of art, furniture and other interior decor for his hotel.[6]
In 1974, the group opened India's first international five-star deluxe beach resort, the Fort Aguada Beach Resort inGoa. In 1970s, the Taj Group also began its business in metropolitan hotels, opening the five-star deluxe hotel,Taj Coromandel inChennai, in 1974, acquiring an equity interest and operating contract for the Taj President (now Vivanta by Taj – President), a business hotel in Mumbai, in 1977, and also opening the Taj Mahal Hotel inDelhi in 1978.
The group has been converting royal palaces in India into luxury hotels since the 1970s. The first palace to be converted into a Taj luxury hotel was theLake Palace inUdaipur, in 1971.[7] Other examples include theRambagh Palace inJaipur,Umaid Bhawan Palace inJodhpur,Falaknuma Palace inHyderabad and Nadesar Palace inVaranasi.
In 1984, the Taj Group acquired, under a licence agreement, each of the Taj West End inBangalore,Taj Connemara, inChennai and Savoy Hotel inOoty. The five-star deluxe hotel,Taj Bengal inKolkata, was opened in the year 1989, and with this, the Taj Group became the only hotel chain in India with a presence in the six major metropolitan cities of India, namely Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai.
Concurrently with the expansion of its luxury hotel chain in the major metropolitan cities, the Taj Group also expanded its business hotels division in the major metropolitan and large secondary cities in India. During the 1990s, the Taj Group continued to expand its geographic and market coverage in India. It developed specialised operations (such as wildlife lodges) and consolidated its position in established markets through the upgrading of existing properties and development of new properties. Taj also set up the Taj Kerala Hotels and Resorts Limited in the early 1990s along with theKerala Tourism Development Corporation.[8]
In 1980, the Taj Group opened its first hotel outside India, the Taj Sheba Hotel inSana'a, inYemen and in the late 1980s, acquired interests in the St. James' Court Hotel (now comprising Taj 51 Buckingham Gate Suites and Residences and St. James' Court, A Taj Hotel) inLondon. In 2005,The Pierre in New York City was acquired.[9]
On 9 March 2022, Taj Exotica Resort & Spa, The Palm, Dubai, was opened. The hotel is the recent addition to The Taj Hotel group. Other properties of the group include Taj Jumeirah Lakes Towers Dubai and Taj Dubai.[10][11][12]
Ten hotels of the Taj Group are members of theLeading Hotels of the World.[13] Two hotels of the Taj Group, namelyRambagh Palace in Jaipur and theTaj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, were ranked in 2013 byCondé Nast Traveller among its "Top 100 Hotels and Resorts in the World".[14]Condé Nast Traveller also ranked the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai as number 13 on its list of "Gold Standard Hotels" in 2014.[15]
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