The Indian unit of Savills Plc, a UK real estate advisor, has acquired a majority interest in Hotelivate to expand its hospitality advisory services across the Asia-Pacific region, the London-based company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The investment combines Hotelivate's hospitality expertise with Savills’ real estate platform to create the Hotelivate-Savills brand.
"This acquisition accelerates Savills' plan to build out hospitality expertise across the APAC region and globally," Martin Fidden, chief executive officer of Savills Asia Pacific (ex-Greater China), told Mint.
Savills did not disclose the amount invested in Hotelivate.
Savills provides services in leasing, capital markets, valuations and project management. Its portfolio includes commercial, industrial and residential property and data centres. The company employs more than 42,000 people across 700 offices, including in Bengaluru, Mumbai, the National Capital Region and Chennai.
While Savills already has hospitality teams in place, Hotelivate has the dominant market share in India, Fidden explained. This domestic market share is estimated at about 55%, Manav Thadani, founder-chairman of Hotelivate, told Mint.
"Beyond that, 20-25% of our revenue comes from outside India," he said. "With the Savills deal, we expect that share to grow to maybe 90% of our revenue soon."
Hotelivate was started by the erstwhile team of HVS India in 2017 after the global consultancy parent wrapped up its India operations. Hotelivate offers hospitality consulting services through offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangkok, Dubai and Singapore. The company will now get access to the Savills network, which operates in over 70 countries, according to the press release.
Hotelivate-Savills will maintain the existing Hotelivate leadership and its focus on hospitality.
"While Savills previously transacted in hotels on an ad-hoc basis, this merger allows us to pursue the hospitality asset class in a far more focused and organized way," Savills India chief executive Anurag Mathur told Mint.
Sector specialization
For Hotelivate, the Savills investment is intended to scale the platform to serve investors while maintaining sector specialization, Thadani said.
"Look at the potential client bases," he said. "Institutional capital players like Blackstone, Brookfield, Chalet and Samhi are doing a lot of transactions. They would rather work with a professional firm like Savills and Hotelivate together to do more of their stuff."
While the go-to market strategy has not been finalized yet, the companies are working to integrate their respective customer relationship management systems and client databases, Mathur said.
In terms of new sectors, Thadani indicated that Hotelivate-Savills will remain opportunistic.
"While we are seeing a trend in branded residences, we will enter niche segments like student housing or senior living only if the commercial fees justify the effort," he said.
The Savills investment comes on the back of heightened deal activity in the hospitality space. The global travel, leisure and hospitality sector saw $51.6 billion in mergers and acquisitions in 2025, an 83% increase in deal value, according to a report by KPMG.
Strategic buyers accounted for 53.7% of the deal value in the M&A space in the sector in 2025, an increase of 146.8%, analysts at IDBI Capital said in a note on 2 April.
JLL predicted in a recent report that private equity will be "back on the offense" in the sector in 2026, after a slower 2025, with firms ready to deploy capital in hotels.
