The Indian Hotels Company and its subsidiaries are collectively known as Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces and is acknowledged as one of Asia's largest and finest hotel company. It was incorporated by the founder of the Tata Group, Jamsetji N Tata. The company opened its first property, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Bombay in 1903. The Taj, a symbol of Indian hospitality, completed its centenary year in 2003. Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces comprises 59 hotels at 40 locations across India with an additional 17 international hotels in the Maldives, Mauritius, Malaysia, United Kingdom, United States of America, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Africa, the Middle East and Australia.
Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces is grouped into Luxury, Leisure and Business categories to provide consistency across the different hotels and standardized
products and services. As early as 1974, the Taj opened India's first international beach resort — Fort Aguada Beach Resort — in Goa. The company operates Taj Air, a luxury private jet operation with Falcon 2000 aircrafts. It also operates Taj Sats Air Catering, the largest airline catering service in South Asia, as a joint venture with Singapore Airport Terminal Services, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines.
The Indian Hotels Company is the Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces ' parent company, owning around a third of the group's inventory of rooms. The balance of room inventory is with associate companies and joint ventures.
Brands belonging to Taj Hotels include the
- Taj Lands End, Mumbai
- Taj Coromandel, Chennai
- Taj Krishna, Hyderabad
- The Pierre, New York
- Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur
- Rambagh Palace, Jaipur
- Taj Exotic Resort & Spa, Maldives.
After a century of pioneering achievements in the Indian hospitality industry, the Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) had renewed its commitment to innovation with the unveiling of indiOne™, a first-of-its-kind of ‘Smart Basics' Hotels. Ratan N. Tata, chairman, IHCL inaugurated the first indiOne™ hotel at Whitefield, Bangalore. The Indian Hotels Company has got a long heritage.
