New hotel operator goes in at the deep end

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

There’s a new hospitality player in town and it intends to make waves. Nothing new about that, you might say. After all, why start something new when you don’t intend it to count for something – but this one has an interesting story.

The new company is called Zinc I InVision Hospitality, the result of a marriage between Cinnovation I CG, part of the Nepali-based global conglomerate Chaudhary Group, and InVision Hospitality, started by former Marriott executive Kevin Beauvais.

The Singapore-based Cinnovation I CG has holdings in excess of US$1 billion and so comes with deep pockets. Zinc I InVision Hospitality says it aims to open 30 hotels in Asia by 2013, and the growth will be financed by Z-I Capital Partners.

Beauvais says the combination of Cinnovation I CG’s “financial depth and hospitality background” and InVision’s “depth of experience and hospitality know-how” will result in “phoenix-like growth” in the next few years.

The company arrives with seven hotel and hospitality brands – Zinc City, GLOW STUDIOS, Zinc Edge, Zinc Living, Zinc Journey, SOMA and Touch by Zinc.

Each one, it says, caters to a unique market segment – luxury resorts, hip business hotels, value-oriented urban travellers, long-stay and residential living, heritage travel and spa & wellness retreats.

At the lunch to launch the new company, I caught up with Rahul Chaudhary, the executive director of Cinnovation I CG and Zinc I InVision Hospitality, who says Zinc I InVision Hospitality will be different from other hotel management companies because it owns most of its assets.

He said that of the 30 planned, 26 were owned assets in some form or another. “We know what it’s like to be owners,” he said.

“As hotel owners, we’ve worked with companies like Hilton and Alila. We have the know-how and we understand the relationship between owner and operator.

“Put it this way, I know what it feels like to be an investor.”

More importantly, Chaudhary said that he has been an investor through the most difficult times – political turbulence, the tsunami tragedy, the global financial crisis.

“We stood our ground through all the challenges,” he said.

Asked if the name “Zinc I InVision Hospitality” was a bit of a mouthful to build a global brand on, he said that as InVision had been in the market for three years and Zinc was still a new brand, it was felt that both names should be kept.


“But in time, InVision will be dropped and it should just become Zinc.”

Chaudhary, who said he has always admired Virgin founder Richard Branson, said his idea was to create a business brand like Virgin, and expand into several industries.

In many ways, it’s a bit of a homecoming for Chaudhary who was educated in the US and spent most of his life there, and now is looking to expand his interests in the region of his roots – India, Nepal and the ASEAN region.

When he was 21, he bought his first hotel – the JFK Doubletree Hilton in New York. “Anything that could go wrong did and I am so glad it did because I learned a lot. It took one year to close the deal of 385 keys.

“Now it takes me three weeks to close a deal,” said Chaudhary, now 27.

The most critical lesson he learnt? “When you’re 21, sitting in a room full of bankers, they tend to look down on you so you have to know your stuff and have to play the game.

“You also learn that one penny saved is one penny earned.”

Chaudhary acknowledges that with his return and expansion in Asia, he’s come full circle. “This is the time of the Asian story. Look at what’s happening in India.”

He said that while international brands had tried to expand in India, few have succeeded.

He said he also learnt a lot from his company’s partnership with the Taj group of hotels. “We were educated in the Taj hotel school. That’s a traditional brand that’s branched out into several brands – Exotica, Safaris and Gateway.

“They’ve also launched a new brand called Ginger for economy hotels.

“So you can have one brand but different verticals and this is how Zinc Hospitality will grow. For example, we have Zinc Journeys, and that’s selling an experience. We will group our assets to create journeys, for example, a Zinc Journey in Thailand.

“This is how hotels can differentiate themselves.”

Most of all, he said the name Zinc stood for trust. “We put our money where our mouth is. We have spent two years creating the brand, now we will begin to build it.”