Starwood floods India with hotels, The St. Regis Mumbai debuts
Starwood announces nine South Asian openings in a year, crossing 54 live hotels with 34 more in the pipeline — and The St. Regis Mumbai becomes the brand's first in South Asia.
Starwood just put a number on its India ambitions: nine hotels opened in South Asia since January 2015, taking the region past the 50-property mark — 54 live, 34 more coming. The headline act is The St. Regis Mumbai, the first St. Regis anywhere in South Asia.
For SPG members, this is the good kind of program news. Starwood has long been a distant presence in Indian metros; a redemption map this much deeper means points earned abroad finally have somewhere serious to land at home.
The timing is the twist. Marriott announced its $12.2 billion takeover of Starwood back in November 2015, so SPG is expanding aggressively in India right as its identity is about to be swallowed whole.
Our take: enjoy the deeper award map while it’s still SPG’s. A program growing this fast on the eve of a merger is building inventory for whoever owns the points next.