Ventive Hospitality Ltd (NSE: VENTIVE) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Aug. 14, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Kedar Shirali — Advisor, Investor Relations
Ranjit Bharat Batra — Chief Executive Officer
Paresh Bafna — Chief Financial Officer
Milind Wadekar — Executive Vice President, Finance And Investor Relations
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Achal Kumar — Analyst
Angad — Analyst
Vaibhav Muley — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
ladies and gentlemen. Good day and welcome to the Ventev Hospitality Limited Q1FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
The audio archive transcription, financial statements and the other documents related to the quarter will be made available on the company’s website. We have with us today from the management team of Ventev Hospitality Limited represented by Mr. Ranjit Batra, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Paresh Bafna, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Milan Vadekar, Executive Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations and Mr. Keda Shirali, Advisor, Investor Relations. Please note that Ventev Hospitality Ltd. Does not provide specific revenue or earnings guidance. Anything said on this call that reflects management’s outlook for the future or which could be constructed as a forward looking statement must must be viewed in conjunction with the risk that company faces.
These risks are outlined in the second slide of Earnings Update presentation available on the company’s website. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ranjit Batra. Thank you sir, over to you.
Ranjit Bharat Batra — Chief Executive Officer
Good afternoon and thank you. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today on this call. After a stellar performance in FY25, we’ve kicked off FY26 on a strong note. With 18% year on year and EBITDA growing at 13% year on year. Our India hospitality business demonstrated resilience and consistency growing at 13% in revenue. This was despite the travel disruptions we witnessed in May due to geopolitical tensions. ADR in India grew at 10% year on year driven by a sharp pricing strategy and active asset management, offsetting temporary softness in occupancies. At Ventev, we’ve always looked at hospitality holistically.
Revpar is our guiding parameter. This gives us a full picture of our assets and its performances. In Q1 India, Trefba stood at around 13,000 rupees, up 13% over the same quarter last year. This was driven by 20% growth in FNB and other source revenue, also led by strong non residential footfalls at our award winning FNB outlets as well as banquets and caterings. This TREFA performance translated into strong EBITDA numbers. With India hospitality ebitda growing at 28% in the quarter. Turning to our international hospitality business, performance remained extremely robust. Revenue growth in Maldives continues to remain robust with 33% growth this quarter driven by stabilization of Raya by atmosphere and a Trev bar growth across our portfolio.
On the same store basis revenue grew 11% including Raya at 33%. Same store Travar in Maldives was 54,000 rupees while including Raya it stood at 44,000 rupees. As mentioned in previous calls, this is due to Raya’s all inclusive model and different price points. Compared to our ultra luxury offerings both in Conrad and Ananthara Maldives EBITDA grew at 47% for Maldives while same store EBITDA grew at 30 year on year to 421 million demonstrating the strength on resilience of our Maldives resorts and also showing their ability to capture the wallet share across multiple revenue streams. We continue to maintain our industry leading margins.
Our consolidated EBITDA stood at 44% on the same store basis in line with last year including Raya Consolidated Beta whose margin was 42%. Our annuity portfolio continues to remain stable with 97% committed occupancy and a rent of 117 rupees. Let me now update you on our development pipeline. Last month we signed management contracts with Marriott International for three of our hotels in our pipeline. Ritz Carlton Reserve Porterville 73 Villas in Sri Lanka Varanasi Marriott Hotel 161 rooms Courtyard by Marriott Mundra 200 rooms at the same event our promoter group companies announced four more hotels JW Navi Mumbai 450keys Moxi Navi Mumbai 200keys Moxi Pune Wakar 264keys and Moxi Pune Karate 200keys.
These four hotels will be made available on the right of first offer or alternate structure basis under suitable arrangement that maximizes value for all stakeholders. I’m pleased to share that this was the largest one day signing for Marriott ever in India and it further strengthens our long lasting partnership with them. With Moxie. We’re also tapping into the preferences of younger travelers, future ready designs, digital savvy and catering to experience seeking clientele. Together these seven hotels and the rebranding of Aloft Widefield to AC by Marriott will add 1,582 keys over the next five years starting FY27.
In parallel, we are evaluating land parcels for greenfield resort projects with branded residents as well as acquisition opportunities to add an additional 500 keys. In total our pipeline will exceed 200 keys, effectively doubling our portfolio over the next five years. While there may be inorganic opportunities as well, we will remain focused on same store growth through pricing, deeper FNB monetization, improved weekend occupancy and activation of our underutilized spaces across our hotels and the opportunity of having a very dominating position in Pune itself. In the other highlights from the quarter, the Ritz Carlton Pune received LEED Platinum Certification from US Green Building Council for Sustainable Operations.
Furthering our ESG Commitment, Ananthara Digu, Maldives and Conrad Rangali, Maldives featured in Travel Leisure 5002015 Top Hotels in Asia Asmana and Yokyo at the Ritz Carlton Pune Pasha and Altovino at the JW Marriott Pune were awarded three stars by Hospital Horizon Epicurean Awards. Looking ahead, we see continued momentum in both our India and Maldives business as we move towards seasonality stronger second half of the year. With that, I now request Milan and Paresh to take through the financials in detail.
Milind Wadekar — Executive Vice President, Finance And Investor Relations
Thank you Ranjit Good afternoon everyone. Before we begin, let me share my usual disclaimer on the comparative for last year. As you are aware, the acquisition of several entities in our portfolio took place in August 2024, so our financial statement of prior period do not have the financial number of those entities. To enable comparison, we have prepared pro forma financial statements based on internal MIS of these periods as if those acquisitions were made on April 1, 2023. Their revenue cost and EBITDA are included in the pro forma financial statement of FY24 and H1FY25. Hence the number presented in the statutory financial statement will differ from the pro forma figures in our commentary, our press release and earning update presentation.
Let me now walk you through our quarter one FY26 headline numbers. Our consolidated revenue in quarter one was 520 crore, a growth of 18%. Year on year our hospitality revenue was at 386 crore, a 23% increase year on year. Within that our India portfolio contributed revenue of 179 crore up 13% year on year basis. Driven by ADR growth and strong FNB revenue growth that Ranjith highlighted, our international hospitality revenue grew 33% to rupees 207 crore including Raya which got consolidated from 1-1-2025. On the same store basis, international hospitality revenue growth was 11%. Moving on to profitability in our India hospitality business, our prudent cost management resulted in 72% flow through of the incremental revenue helping expand our EBITDA margin by 4 percentage points to 35%.
Similarly, in our international business we delivered incremental revenue of 16.6 crore while limiting incremental expenses to 7 crores on same store basis. Consequently, our EBITDA margin expanded by 3 percentage points year on year basis to 24%. We will continue our prudent cost management strategies to expand our hospitality margins further on annualized basis. In absolute terms our Consolidated EBITDA in Q1FY26 was 220.3 crores, a growth of 13% year on year basis. Our consolidated EBITDA margin was at 44% on same store basis and at 42% including Raya. Let me highlight that Raya commenced its operation in July 2024 and this is the first first operating quarter in non peak season.
We are confident that our revenue management strategies will help will help improve these resorts, hospitality segments and our consolidated EBITDA margins in the quarter to come. Our hospitality business contributed an EBITDA of 110.9 crores, a growth of 29% year on year basis. Within that our India hospitality business contributed an EBITDA of 63.4 crores up 28% year on year basis. Our international hospitality business generated EBITDA of 47.6 crore in Q1A growth of 47%. EBITDA growth on same store basis was 30%. Lastly, the annuity component of our portfolio consisting of prime commercial office buildings and retail properties in Pune generated a revenue of 124 crore up 2% year on year while the EBITDA was 111.2%, a growth of 1% year on year.
Now I request Paresh to take you through our debt summary.
Paresh Bafna — Chief Financial Officer
We continue to consolidate our balance sheet during the quarter supported by strong operational performance. A consolidated gross Debt stood at 2,188 crores comprising of 1264 crores in rupee denominated debt and USG 108 million equivalent to 924 crores in USG denominated debt. For a Maldive hotel, a consolidated cash balance was resulting in net debt of Rupees 16. 79 crores. We reduced our debt by 75.9 crores and USD denominated debt by ult. 5 million totally equivalent to 116 crores. Our cost of finance remains highly competitive. As of June 30, interest rates were 7.85% for rupee denominated loans and 7.55% for USD denominated loans.
This reduction will lead to interest saving of further 40 million on an annualized basis, further strengthening our cash reserves. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio has improved quarter on quarter. We believe our stability, our stable annuity, cash flows, strong cash surplus and available debt redo provides us with the financial flexibility to pursue acquisition and growth opportunities while maintaining a competitive advantage. We continue to hold strong credit rating AA with crisil and double A plus for our material subsidiary and remain fully compliant with SEBI regulations for digital entities. With this we would now like to open the floor for questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Achal Kumar from hsbc. Please go ahead.
Achal Kumar
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. So I had, I had a few questions actually. So first of all I wanted to understand about the difference between the Revpar and the Revpar. So your Trevor was up 13% while the RevPAR was up about 8%. So what’s going on there? I mean your non room revenue grew very strongly it seems. So was it because of a strong mice or was it because of higher restaurant sales? So any color would be appreciated please.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Hi Achit, this is Ranjit here. Yes, of course, you know, given our portfolio and our high performance in FNB which of course includes specialty restaurants and banquets in India and also in Maldives, the concept of one island, one resort makes our customers spend again on the extra incremental revenue apart from the rooms on FNB and other things like excursions, spas, etc. So we have a very high level of contribution of other sources. And that’s why for us as Ventev, our parameter is tref bar which means total revenue per available room as a correct matrix which will indicate to us, which will indicate fairly as to our real performance.
Achal Kumar
But is it possible for you to break down the non room revenue into the like the food and beverage and the sort of other part of mice marriages, exhibitions and all please.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Yeah, sure. So approximately 35 to 40% of our every FNB revenue now I’m talking about India is or to put differently, around 15% of total revenue in India comes from mice and weddings which is very healthy. Rest comes from specialty restaurants. We are, as you know, we have one of the highest and the largest banquet halls in western India. And JW also is positioned as a convention hotel. So we focus equally on fnb, like I said, as a company and on rooms. So for example, in FY25 India, FNB contribution was 36% and Maldives was 33%.
And our flagship properties in India which had an even higher contribution up to 50%. To give you a little bit more flavor, we are not fully dependent on our occupancy for our FNB portfolio. 80% of our FNB portfolio actually comes from outside the city, which means that the hotel in house Capture is only 20% which keeps our FNB performance largely independent of room occupancy. I hope I answered your question.
Achal Kumar
Yeah, I think that that’s helpful. My second question about around your debt. So basically your debt has. Your INR debt has gone down slightly or US dollar debt has gone down slightly. But I mean you know your, you face significant currency risk on your US dollar debt. Although I understand that the cost of debt is also slightly low, but I think forex risk is much bigger. So don’t you have or sort of, I mean do you have focus on reducing US US dollar that much faster than inr? And especially in the situation when you know we are facing so much of drama from Trump.
So there is a bigger risk to the currency. So what are your thoughts on that please?
Milind Wadekar
So Achal Millennial, our USD debt is on our Maldives entities and the entire revenue and expenses in Maldives are accounted in US dollars. So from that perspective we have natural hedge when it comes to currency risk as far as repayment is concerned. And in fact when US dollar goes up, it helps us in incremental revenue when we convert it, convert my new companies financially into Indian rupees and consolidated. So from that perspective it helps. And this currency risk perspective, there is a natural hedge.
Achal Kumar
Okay, okay, fine. And then, and then I had a question around your operational performance. I mean you know, you have, you had continued sort of low occupancy levels in the domestic as well as international market, which actually confuses me because I mean it is these occupancy levels are well below the industry average. You know. And then of course one side, we are talking about a lot more and more GCs coming to Pune. But I think, I mean the current occupancy levels are quite, quite low as compared to the industry. Any, any thoughts, any colors on that? How do you see these?
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Yeah, to an extent, yes. This was a pretty much a, an effort. We started two years back where we were pushing ADRs and like we said, we are going to be going the route of occupancy. Very clearly we have some Results to back this what we claimed last year, FY25, we grew our occupancy by on portfolio level by 4% and we are continuing this growth going forward. I think this gives us a lot of headroom for growth in occupancy and catching up to the industry. I think that’s where we are right now.
Milind Wadekar
So Achal, to add further to what Ranjit said, last year’s occupancy for the year India portfolio was 66. And we have limited presence in gateway cities. Now if you look at occupancy trade in gateway cities, I mean three years back occupancy picked up in Hyderabad. Last one and a half year occupancy is hitting the roof in Bangalore. And our view is occupancy will pick up in Pune as we move ahead. And our internal estimate it should go up to 70 to 75% in medium term. I mean we are not saying it will happen immediately but progressively it will go up to 70 to 75%.
Achal Kumar
Okay. Okay. And then, and then what and why you think so? I mean what are the drivers you see when you say the you expect occupancy levels to go to 77%? Something like that.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Look, in my view we have very clear indications of the office uptake where we are concentrated. Pune especially there’s a 40 million growth of office space directly relating to hotel occupancy. There’s huge infrastructural upgrade that is going to be affecting a lot of our assets. Let me talk about first the Maldives. Maldives has got a huge infrastructure development of the new airport that’s opened. So that’s going to be catering from 2 million going up to 7 million international travelers going seamlessly to the resorts. So that’s going to be quite a change both in rates and occupancies, more so occupancies because that will drive volume.
And Pune again apart from the offices is going to become. The office uptake is again related also to the new Navi Mumbai airport that is set to open end of the year. And we are seeing very growth, strong demand from GCCs, BPOs, FinTech and banking firms and especially where our hotels are well placed to catch that opportunity.
Milind Wadekar
So Achill two, three infra projects. One is new Mumbai airport, Pune airport. New airport is getting constructed. The old one is expanded connectivity. Mumbai Pune Express highway will be improved. It will reduce travel time by half an hour. And ring road is getting built around Pune city. So that will improve traffic conditions within the city. So all that should improve overall Living standards and business input.
Achal Kumar
Right, right. And then on the capex plan could you please give a bit of a color on you know what are your CapEx plan now and given that you have now you have ROFO assets which are coming up. So how, including all that what kind of capex should we expect and how are you planning to fund those CapEx? And while we are on the capex I also wanted to understand if you have any plans or any focus on inorganic growth or are you already in the process to find out something for the. For the growth please.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
So the total capital outlay for the seven announced hotels will be around 2,200 crores. I’ll let Milind give you the further details on that. Yeah.
Milind Wadekar
Now if you look at our announcement for 1582 quays, I mean 1582 includes 33 addition in our Bangalore hotel. So four hotels including Bangalore Marriott rebranding is on the company’s balance sheet I.e. varanasi Munra in Gujarat, Sri Lanka and Marriott Bangalore. So total CAPEX outlay for these four hotels will be in the range of thousand crore to be spent over next 30 to 36 months.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Okay.
Milind Wadekar
At balance 1114 keys are developed by the group and these are on. We are looking at various options and alternative how to take it. And one of the options we are evaluating is warm sale lease from group companies that will happen after 30 to 36 months. So for the first three years or two and a half years we’ll spend capex of thousand crore rupees on four hotels on the balance sheet by the time this warm shell is ready and we will need around 12 to 18 months for fit out that capex is around 1200 rupees.
So our approach is to fund growth through internal accruals and maintaining healthy leverages the hospitality industry we are looking at structural long term growth. Last financial year we achieved consolidated EBITDA of 1000 crore on pro forma basis and we expect mid term mid teens revenue growth and high teens EBITDA growth resulting in estimated cumulative EBITDA of 6,500 crores over the next five years and that will generate around 4,500 crore cash surplus and 500 what we have cash on books. So total 5,000 crore rupees is available for capex. So we are committing 2,200 crores for the announced pipeline Keeping gunpowder dry for potential value accretive acquisition I hope and in that.
Achal Kumar
And does that include your all the maintenance capex and everything?
Milind Wadekar
Yes, maintenance capex will be small amount. I mean 30, 40, 50 crore rupees a year. So it will not move the needle. I mean, looking at the cash flow, what we are expected to generate year on year basis.
Achal Kumar
Okay, fine, perfect. I have two more questions, but I’ll come back in with you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you so much. Thank you. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all the participants in this conference, we request you to please limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have any follow up question, we request you to rejoin the queue. The next question is from the line of Mr. Angad from UBS India. Please go ahead.
Angad
Yeah, hi, thank you for taking my question. Two questions. One, you know, on the inorganic strategy that you were intending to implement, so what sort, you know, when you’re looking at these assets to acquire, what sort of criteria do you look at in terms of, you know, size, profitability, if you could just give some more color on, you know, what the strategy around looking at those assets.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Hi Angad, thank you for your question. Yeah, I think it’s a very interesting landscape that we have in terms of trying to acquire assets for all listed companies at this stage and we are no different. What we do is we look at the industry as a whole and we also put a lot of weightage on what the customer preferences are and how they are shifting today and for the tomorrow users. So we’re combining that with our strength of construction that we have as a legacy and we will be looking at a lot of opportunities for rebranding, repositioning and we will be open to new concepts as well.
At this stage, our focus is looking at forward trends of leisure combined with wellness at a very aggressive way. We know this industry is right now at around $6.3 trillion and is going to move to 9 trillion by 2020. So we want to be part of that as well. I know in general India has to a great extent missed the pure luxury story and we clearly see the space to come and fill that for sure. Apart from this, we are also looking very actively to add some branded residents in leisure destinations. That’s pretty much our view at this stage, how we look at acquiring new assets.
Milind Wadekar
So let me add further, Angad. Our capital allocation policies are guided by internal threshold on return on capital employed and we are location agnostic and we’ll deploy our capital in hospitality assets which will diversify our geographic concentration and also help us to address new market and customer segment so Ranjit, I’ve covered most of it. Currently we are actively evaluating potential acquisition candidates in high end leisure and wellness segments. We especially like assets with surplus land and further development potential where we can build, as Ranjith mentioned, branded residences for sale which will bring down our project cost.
Angad
And you know when you say that you’re intending to be geography agnostic to. A certain extent, what sort of micro. Markets excite you today in terms of when you look at India like obviously you have existing assets in certain geographies but when you’re looking to expand, what sort of micro markets are you really looking very bullish on?
Ranjit Bharat Batra
So we already have very strategic presence in the Bangalore micro markets, both Orr and Whitefield. We also have cover the religious destination with our Marriott in Varanasi. We actually are looking at more from an opportunity perspective, not geography perspective. And some of the micro markets that obviously excite us are some of the assets that we already in the pipeline with the Moxie portfolio that we discussed in the beginning. And we are also very excited about the Navi Mumbai combination of the new JW which is a very dominating brand for that market which we managed to secure well ahead of time with the combination with Moxie.
So this is pretty much how we are looking at as first entry mover advantage areas that have less supply. For example Mudra would be a first movers advantage with a proper branded resort. And leisure is something we all recognize is there huge opportunities. In my view our leisure has got a little diluted over the years. I think most of the hotels have become wedding hotels. So we’ve missed the leisure both to most of our neighboring countries, especially when they get very, very aggressive with the visa fee policies and lure most of our holidaymakers. And if we are true to leisure I feel and we combine with wellness which is inherently a strong point for India, I believe we have a good combination to get the leisure travelers back to India.
And I think there are two obvious reasons. I think when we see leisure, Indians are little different when they consume leisure. They particularly travel in big groups and they make last minute plans for holidays. So I see more and more reason why we would be right in the right position to capture this market in India itself.
Angad
Got it, got it. Thank you for that elaborate answer. Just one last question. We’re talking about occupancy levels to increase and we’re anticipating that to happen for Pune as well. Just wanted to understand the sensitivity of that towards margins, occupancy and adr. How do you see the sensitivity towards margins and with occupancy rising. Do you see the potential of some improvement on margin front as well?
Milind Wadekar
Yeah. Let me first talk about margin sensitivity to ADR improvement. I mean. We estimate approximately. I mean it has two impact. One is there will be incremental EBITDA which will fourth flow through and there will be impact on our EBITDA margins. Okay. So 1% ADR improvement will translate into around 90 to 95% of incremental EBITDA. Because the cost against this incremental revenue is only operator fees and credit card commission. Right. So our margin sensitivity as I said will be 60 to 65bps with 1% growth in areas. Right. Similarly, with 1% expansion in occupancy, our EBITDA margins will improve by 75bps. And incremental revenue from incremental occupancy. Incremental EBITDA from incremental occupancy will be 80 to 85%. Because incremental cost is only gas supplies, room amenities, operator fees and credit card commission. To elaborate further, let me give you some perspective and some numbers. Our India ADR in FY25 was around 11,250 which is equivalent to US$130. Given the demand supply dynamics in India hospitality, we expect this to converge with global rates. Even a small $25 ADR improvement will add around 75 to 80 crores of our EBITDA.
I mean to summarize, 1% ADR growth improves our EBITDA margin by 60 to 65 pips. And 1% occupancy expansion will improve our EBITDA margins by 70 to 75 peps.
Angad
Got it. Got it. Thank you so much. That’s all from my time. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mr. Vaibhav Mulle from yes, Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Vaibhav Muley
Hello.
operator
Yes sir. You are audible.
Vaibhav Muley
Yeah, sir, first of all, congratulations on a good set of numbers. My first question was on our international performance. We have done a fairly decent occupancy expansion year on year and Prevpar has also held up well on a same store basis. So what has fundamentally changed to this, you know, led to this improvement in the international market? And do you think this trajectory will continue in the upcoming quarters and we’ll see notable improvement in the operational performance for full year?
Ranjit Bharat Batra
So I agree Vaibhav, the Maldives revenue did grow. We grew 33% and EBITDA by 47% which is fantastic. So thank you for the compliment. Even though there is a seasonality factor in Maldives now that we have taken over full and active asset management. We are bringing in a huge amount of efficiencies in place for margins. Anantara did grow in occupancy, but there was a little blip in the adr while Conrad grew both in occupancy and adr. But overall margins and growth was seen in both the hotels. We put in some efficiencies. There are three big boxes in Maldives.
One is, you know, the power, the second is manpower and the third is the procurement. So we put in procurement in place. We are doing cluster procurement which has started to show a lot of results. There’s a lot of learning from Raya which is actually an all inclusive concept and it has a lot of discipline in the purchase front. We have done some serious negotiation on diesel pricing. Diesel is something that is running 24,7 on generators in Maldives. So any change there has huge impact on margins. And of course we’re expanding the solar footprint in all the three resorts that we have.
And the work is not only started, it started showing results and we’re going to start moving into the expansion mode. So these are the few things plus very active asset management on day to day basis. A lot of focus on marketing, a lot of focus on esg. I think Maldives is a very fragile country and ESG and all the other, you know, currently the filters to choose and book resorts in Maldives has a huge implication on the eco sensitivity. So we have actually gone into a lot of certifications and partnerships there which is going to be a huge change.
We have got new programs which are in place for guests to come and enjoy luxury without guilt and things like that. So it’s a matter of marketing and sending the right messaging across. Lastly, occupancy, yeah, it has gone up by 3% which is also through some operating leverage.
Vaibhav Muley
Understood. And just a follow up on that. So how has been the performance of Raya? Last time we had mentioned it had turned EBITDA positive within six months of operations. Now has there been any improvement?
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Yes, personally looking into Raya, since it’s our brand new baby, on the same store basis, Maldives grew 11% whereas Trevpa grew at 11%. And occupying Raya, Maldives grew by 33% and EBITDA grew by 47%. So Raya continues to be a very stable performer in line with our projections and our budgets. This has already reached occupancies at par with their industry standards which we are very, very happy with. And this all inclusive concept typically works really well. It is, it has got a lot of visibility and presence in the wholesale market, which was our strategy for the first year.
The presence further gives a lot of volume. One has to know that 80% of Maldives still works with wholesale market and all inclusive is right now the most popular for the wholesale market. So we are right there with the right product, right time and why would.
Milind Wadekar
We have reported positive, positive EBITDA for the quarter?
Vaibhav Muley
Okay, got it. Coming to our Pune market, we have, as the previous participant mentioned, occupancies are relatively lower still compared to industry standards and we do have a lot of headroom for occupancy expansion from the current levels. So would we expect any sort of shift in strategy towards higher occupancy expansion at the expense of lower ADR growth in future?
Ranjit Bharat Batra
The idea is not to lower the ADR in the future. Idea is to push RevPAR. That’s always our philosophy and we’ll continue on that. And that’s where we see our FNB and other incremental revenues kicking in. So while you’re right, we did push the ADRs in the past and occupancies are growing very strong in our portfolio. We will continue on the same trajectory with our occupancies.
Milind Wadekar
Yeah.
Vaibhav Muley
All right. Thank you so much for answering the. Questions and all the best.
operator
Thank you. The next question in is from the line of achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead Mr. Achan.
Achal Kumar
Sorry, am I audible?
operator
Yes, yes, please go.
Achal Kumar
Sorry, sorry, sorry about that. And then thanks for another opportunity. So one I just wanted to understand about the operator concentration. So for the new properties also you announced you selected Marriott as your partner. So just want to understand if sort of if there is a legal bounding for you to stick to Marriott or not and if not then was there a commercial sense to stick to Marriott? Why I’m asking this question is basically for example a warranty property. Now warranty is a place where you have a lot of local tourism and do you think local would prefer to stay with Marriott or maybe some different players, for example say Taj or whatever.
So I’m just trying to understand what is the commercial logic and is there a legal bounding to stick with Marriott and not to not to sort of break this operator concentration please.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
I think it’s a great question, Arshul and let me try to explain this. I think we have first of all no legal bounding with any brand in general, totally brand agnostic. And we are also location agnostic like I said before. But I’ll explain the answer. I think when we evaluate hotel operators, we obviously consider the demand and supply dynamics and a suitable brand which will be available in that particular micro market. So I think a good management company will always have to have good systems, processes and the ability, most importantly of global distribution and reservations and Marriott being one of them.
For our announced project we felt Marriott brand was fitting and the right choice. We introduced the first combo like I said, JW and mock Moxie Naval Bombay, the first Marriott branded in Varanasi. The first Ritz Carlton reserve in Sri Lanka, the only eight in the world. So that’s something very, very prestigious. And the first Moxie’s in Pune as well. Our relationship I think has been further strengthened by signing the seven properties and when we signed first with Marriott it’s a long association Anchal. When we signed with Marriott first there were only six hotels today about 160 hotels.
And in my view this partner is a growth driver rather than a, what do you say? Concentration, risk. So Marriott is in my view this is again up for debate but I feel Marriott is truly one of the first international brands which has a lot of local adaptability to your question of Varanasi. And not only that they are bringing in, they are one of the few brands that are bringing in lifestyle brands like Moxie and AC which we have actually participated with. These are perfectly situated, suited for minerals, Gen Zs and I think to a great extent the IT professionals.
Marriott also has about 240 million Bonvoy members. I think that’s a huge, huge advantage to that creates a base of loyalty program which really brings in new customers, easy to acquire new customers and also I think it encourages a lot of stickiness to increase our base of repeat clientele. We’ve seen this in our existing hotels and we have seen this how the world is shaping up when it comes to choosing hotels through loyalty programs. And that’s probably one of the top reasons why people choose hotels. So the other aspect, Anshul, I think to sum it up would be that having sometimes if you’re concentrated geographically in certain locations, having the same brand has a lot of advantages both on the cost side and also on the revenue side.
And we can also look at, we do look at some efficiencies coming out of clustering of resources, talent, revenue management and procurements, et cetera.
Achal Kumar
Right, okay now fair enough, sorry. And then I just want to understand so basically you’re spending a lot of money on sales and distribution and digital improvement how much that has helped? I mean did you see any increase in your direct sales and how do you see that going forward? I mean do you see the reduced dependency on the ODAs? And also so overall if you could just give a bit of a color on your sales and distribution strategy and your direct sales piece.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
So as the world keeps advancing on technology and seamless connectivity, direct bookings on bar rate or direct distribution channels is the future. Bundling is also another aspect that is going to come in, especially with AI where we could be bundling in the hotels with other travel options and options for things to do. So these are the things that are 100% coming in. We’re already seeing that our brands that we associated with already preparing themselves from technology perspective, from guest retention and guest acquisition data is going to be cold. Knowing what a customer wants, how he behaves and how he’s going to consume your hotel, whether it’s business or leisure, we are no different.
Our partners are no different. Marriott is ahead in the game whether it comes to seamless check in or any of the other technologies that are adopting. I’m particularly very, very bullish on some of the energy monitoring systems that we put into place in Ventev where we can see all the energy on a dashboard on HO level which also relates to other life cycle management of our assets as well. So yeah, personally very, very bullish on the technology part.
Achal Kumar
Right. Okay. And my last question is on the on your international revenue and EBITDA. So international revenue was up 33%, EBITDA was up 47%. So what was these growth numbers for revenue and EBITDA on same store basis? And then in terms of Raya, when do you think Raya can come up to the standards of your other hotels? Especially in terms of EBITDA margin, What was EBITDA margin in this quarter for Raya, please.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
So on the same store basis Maldives revenue grew 11% and EBITDA grew by 30%. So this is highlighting actually excellent performance of Conrad and Anantara. Regarding Raya. If you look at the high season margins of Q4, Raya did even better than Conrad and Anantara. It is probably in high 40s. I cannot give you forward looking numbers but this will give you a good indication how Raya performs in this brand new avatar of just 8 months old already attaining high 40s GOP. Sorry EBITDA. And you know it’s like I said before, it’s totally in line with our budgets and performance reviews that we do as per our forecast.
Milind Wadekar
Sachal just to add further, I mean if you look at Maldives business first 2/4 are seasonally lean quarters and revenue and EBITDA of quarter three is equals to revenue and EBITDA quarter one and quarter two and revenue and EBITDA of quarter four is equivalent to first three quarters revenue and EBITDA from that perspective Ranjit, as I already explained Raya quarter 4 which was peak quarter for Mordews reported around 50% EBITDA which was higher than Conrad and Anantara. And with all inclusive concept and cost initiatives what we have, we are very confident it will show same level of EBITDA in the quarters to come.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Just a special mention. Just a special mention. Achal, if you look at the TripAdvisor which is a matrix for customer reviews, Raya, what we’re doing in the first year basically is solidifying the brand, solidify customer experience and laying a foundation for future repeat clientele base. So a special mention is the guest reviews on TripAdvisor for Raya amongst the top 10% globally. I think that shows a lot on how the brand is being positioned, how the customer has given feedback and how the wholesalers have accepted this product in a very positive way leading a pretty good path for a solid growth in the future.
Achal Kumar
Right, right. And I’m sorry, just clarification. So you said on same path on same store basis ebitda was up 13%. Thirteen, right.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Three, zero, three zero.
Achal Kumar
Okay, sorry. Yeah, three zero. I’m so sorry if I can squeeze in last question and I told me I’ll shut up after that. So basically any words on, on the forward quarter, the next quarter, any, any, any color? Because you know we have, we’ve been hearing that you know some of the, some of the conferences, some of the marriages which are planned in the first quarter and because of, because of this India, Pakistan war and all that, some of them were actually shifted to the second quarter. And these mice and exhibitions and people, people usually tend to book much in advance.
So I guess you must have some visibility on the next quarter. So would really appreciate if you could give us some color in terms of how the next quarter looks like in terms of room revenue, in terms of mice business and all. Please.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
Ajay, I’d love to give you a flavor but all I can tell you at this time we do not give too much of outlook on the future but we are definitely in line with our projections. Historically we’ve done double digit growth and we’ll continue to do double digit growth in most of the parameters.
Achal Kumar
Okay, perfect, perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for this session. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Ranjit Bharat Batra
To conclude, we started the year with strong momentum led by double digit revenue growth and even higher profit growth. In India revenue grew 13% while EBITDA grew at 28% year on year. In our international hospitality business, same store revenue grew 11% and EBITDA grew 30% year on year. Our annuity business continued to deliver stable performance with a 2% revenue growth as we continue to drive same store performances through operational excellence. Our growth pipeline of over 2,000 keys puts us on track to double our portfolio over the next five years. Of this 1582 keys come from the seven Marriotts we signed last month and AC by Marriott.
The rest is from Greenfield and acquisition opportunities. Thank you once again for joining us today. Wishing you all a great evening and a great weekend.
operator
Thank you sir. On behalf of Ventev Hospitality Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.