Crafting World-Class Experiences
Hospitality & Travel
Executive Search
50+ C-Suite Placements in Hospitality — typical mandates close in 95-120 days, with a 12-month candidate guarantee.
Is This Your Situation?
If any of these sound familiar, you're speaking to the right practice.
→Your luxury hotel chain is opening 8 new properties in the next 24 months, including 3 international brand partnerships. You need General Managers who meet global brand standards while managing Indian cost structures.
→Your OTA's CTO left to join a competitor. The replacement must manage a platform handling 500,000 daily transactions, a 400-person engineering team, and an AI-powered personalisation engine.
→Your QSR chain is scaling from 200 to 600 outlets and needs a COO who can manage franchise operations, kitchen standardisation, and food safety compliance at scale across India.
→Your destination resort company needs a CEO who can balance luxury guest experience with RevPAR optimisation and manage the complex stakeholder dynamics of heritage and eco-sensitive properties.
Our Hospitality Track Record
Placing the Hoteliers and Operators Who Define India's Finest Guest Experiences
The professionals who open luxury properties, turn around underperforming hotels, and build revenue management systems that optimise across 300+ distribution channels are not found through job boards. A General Manager w…
See how Gladwin International & Company helps India's leading organisations access hard-to-reach specialist talent in Hospitality — the profiles that never appear on job boards.
700+
Hospitality & travel professionals mapped
14+
Specialist hospitality mandates placed in 36 months
28
Hotel brands and chains with active alumni relationships
Situation:
India's most iconic luxury hotel brand needed a GM for its flagship 400-room property. The role required managing ₹250 Cr in annual revenue, a team of 1,200, and the expectations of a brand with 120 years of heritage.
Outcome:
Placed in 58 days. RevPAR increased 18% in first year. Guest satisfaction scores (LQA) improved from 86 to 91. Flagship property won Asia's Best Hotel award within 14 months.
Situation:
Leading Indian OTA needed a VP Product to redesign the mobile booking experience, improve conversion rates, and integrate AI-powered travel recommendations. Mobile conversion was 40% below global OTA benchmarks.
Outcome:
Placed in 37 days. Mobile conversion improved 62% within 6 months. AI recommendation engine increased cross-sell revenue by 28%. App store rating improved from 3.8 to 4.5.
Situation:
Asset-light hotel management company operating 45 properties needed a CFO to streamline management fee collection, establish REIT-ready financial reporting, and manage relationships with 30+ asset owners.
Outcome:
Placed in 42 days. Management fee collection improved from 78% to 96%. REIT documentation completed. Two new management contracts won based on improved financial transparency.
All client details anonymised. Specific mandates available for reference under NDA upon request.
Our Hospitality Practice
India's hospitality and travel sector has demonstrated remarkable resilience and ambition. Post-pandemic, domestic travel has surged to record levels, luxury hospitality is growing at double-digit rates, and India's wedding and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) market is driving strong occupancy across segments. The sector is simultaneously dealing with the chronic challenge of operational talent scarcity — particularly in culinary, service delivery, and general management roles.
Our Hospitality & Travel practice at Gladwin International Leadership Advisors covers luxury hotels and resorts, mid-scale and economy hotel chains, food and beverage businesses, travel technology companies and OTAs, destination management companies, and travel and hospitality conglomerates. We understand that great hospitality leadership requires an unusual combination of operational precision, financial discipline, and genuine service orientation.
The travel technology dimension of our practice is increasingly important: India's leading online travel aggregators and global OTA platforms have created sophisticated technology-enabled travel businesses that need both hospitality domain expertise and technology product leadership.
The Hospitality Landscape Today
India's hospitality market is $32 billion and is projected to double by 2030. Domestic air passenger traffic is at all-time highs. International tourist arrivals are recovering and targeting 40 million by 2030. Room supply is growing at 8-10% annually, with significant investment in luxury, upper-upscale, and branded select-service segments. Leisure and bleisure travel is driving strong performance in resort destinations. Food delivery, cloud kitchens, and the organised food service sector are growing at 15-18% annually. India's OTA market is $12 billion, dominated by the leading domestic player and consolidating rapidly.
Key Leadership Challenges in Hospitality
General manager talent scarcity — qualified, experienced GMs who can manage large full-service hotels are in critically short supply across India
Technology leadership for hospitality — finding leaders who understand both the guest experience of hospitality and the product development of technology is exceptionally rare
Revenue management sophistication — moving from intuition-based to data-driven dynamic pricing and revenue optimisation requires a new generation of commercial leaders
International brand standard compliance — as Indian hotels operate under global brand flags, aligning operational leaders with international brand standards while managing Indian cost structures
Food and beverage innovation — the F&B landscape is hyper-competitive; finding culinary and F&B leaders who can drive both quality and profitability
Sustainable tourism leadership — as 'responsible travel' becomes a differentiator, finding CSO and sustainability leaders in hospitality who can reduce environmental impact credibly
Roles We Typically Place
Why Gladwin International Leadership Advisors for Hospitality
Hotel chain coverage across India's leading domestic luxury hotel companies and all major global luxury and upper-upscale operators with India presence
Branded select service and economy — leading asset-light budget aggregators, listed mid-market hotel chains, and fast-growing branded-budget operators
OTA and travel technology — India's leading online travel aggregators and B2B travel platform companies
Food service and QSR — airline and institutional catering majors, global contract-catering operators, and organised restaurant chain groups
Destination management and luxury travel — deep network in boutique, resort, and experience hospitality
Organisations We Serve
Luxury and upper-upscale hotel chains (Indian and international brands)
Mid-scale and branded budget hotels
OTAs and travel technology platforms
Food service, QSR, and organised F&B businesses
Destination management and experiential travel companies
Hospitality Leadership Assessment — “PINNACLE”
Seven dimensions calibrated for hospitality and travel leadership.
C-Suite Function Practices
Each function we place in Hospitality has a dedicated practice with sector-calibrated assessment.
Discuss a Hospitality Mandate
Confidential · No obligation
Response within 4 business hours · All enquiries handled by a senior practice partner · Strictly confidential
Specialist Search Within Hospitality
Leadership mandates in hospitality rarely map to a single profile — the assessment that wins a sub-sector search is almost never the one that wins a generalist search. Each sub-practice below runs as its own retained engagement, with calibrated archetypes, compensation context, and candidate bench.
44+
Luxury Hotel Leadership Placements
Luxury & Premium Hotels
5-STAR · PALACE · RESORT · UHNI RETREATS · LUXURY GCH
Luxury and premium hotels in India span the Taj Hotels (Indian Hotels Company / IHCL, listed), ITC Hotels (demerged entity, listed 2024–2025), Oberoi Group (EIH, listed), Leela…
38+
Mid-Market Hotel Placements
Mid-Market & Budget Hotels
UPPER-MIDSCALE · MIDSCALE · ECONOMY · BUDGET · BRANDED-BUDGET
Mid-market and budget hotels in India span upper-midscale (Courtyard by Marriott, Novotel, Holiday Inn, Radisson, DoubleTree, Crowne Plaza, Vivanta by Taj, Welcomhotel, Four Poi…
42+
Online Travel Placements
Online Travel & OTA
OTAs · META · FLIGHTS · HOTELS · HOLIDAYS · CORPORATE TRAVEL
Indian online-travel is a ₹60,000-Cr GMV market led by MakeMyTrip (listed, owns Goibibo + redBus), EaseMyTrip (listed), Yatra (listed), Cleartrip (Flipkart-owned), Ixigo (listed…
46+
F&B Leadership Placements
Premium Restaurants & F&B
FINE DINING · CASUAL DINING · QSR · CLOUD KITCHENS · BAR & BEVERAGE
Premium restaurants and F&B in India span fine dining (Indian Accent, Masque, Bombay Canteen, Americano, Megu, Wasabi, Seefah, Le Cirque Signature, Veda, Bukhara), Michelin-insp…
32+
Travel & Tourism Placements
Travel, Tourism & Destination
DMCs · INBOUND · OUTBOUND · MICE · CRUISE · SPECIALTY TOURS
Travel, tourism and destination management in India spans inbound DMCs (Kuoni Destination Management India, Abercrombie & Kent India, Cox & Kings Inbound, Travel Corporation of…
18+
Wellness Leadership Placements
Wellness & Spa Resorts
AYURVEDA · YOGA · WELLNESS RESORTS · NATUROPATHY · UHNI RETREATS
Wellness, spa and retreat resorts in India span internationally-renowned retreats (Ananda in the Himalayas, Vana Retreat Dehradun, Atmantan Wellness Resort, SOUKYA, Shreyas Retr…
Don't see the exact sub-practice you need? Tell us about the mandate — we frequently run searches at the seam between two sub-practices.
Geographic Coverage
Hospitality Executive Search by Location
Our Hospitality practice operates across India and key international markets. Explore location-specific leadership intelligence for your city.
Full-service and luxury hospitality — deep relationships with all major hotel brands in India
Travel technology and OTA leadership — specialist practice in India's $12 billion OTA market
F&B and culinary leadership — one of the few search firms with genuine depth in food service and hospitality culinary talent
Looking for a Hospitality Leader?
Our Hospitality practice is ready to help. Guaranteed placement · 12-month candidate guarantee · Affordable pricing for organisations across the value chain.
India's leading executive search firm in Hospitality & Travel.
Six structural advantages we bring to every hospitality mandate — three proprietary platforms (WHISPER, SYMPHONY, GRAFA), three commitments (partner-led, triangulated references, one-firm service). The full case lives on our executive search page.
Read the full caseFrequently Asked Questions — Hospitality & Travel Executive Search
Common questions about recruiting Hospitality & Travel leadership in India.
Our Hospitality & Travel practice covers hotels, resorts, food service, travel management, online travel agencies, and experience-led tourism businesses. We maintain direct relationships with senior hotel operators, GMs, Area Directors, and hospitality holding company CEOs across branded and independent properties, domestic and international hotel chains, and new-age hospitality concepts. Our assessment framework specifically evaluates the guest experience philosophy, F&B commercial acumen, and team culture-building credentials of every candidate.
We fill the full spectrum: Hotel CEO/MD, CFO, GM (General Manager), VP Operations, Area Director, Head of Revenue Management, CMO, Head of Sales & Marketing, Head of Food & Beverage, Head of Human Resources, Head of Rooms, Director of Finance, and Board Directors for hotel holding companies. We also serve travel management companies, online travel agencies, tour operators, and airline catering businesses.
Post-pandemic hospitality leadership requires the ability to rebuild teams, restore brand equity, and drive revenue recovery — all simultaneously. The best hotel GMs and CEOs today combine genuine service culture leadership with strong commercial acumen — driving RevPAR, managing food cost, and building event and MICE revenue streams. Technology fluency is increasingly critical: revenue management systems, distribution channel optimisation, and digital guest experience platforms require leaders who can translate technology investment into measurable guest satisfaction and revenue outcomes.
Yes. Luxury and boutique hospitality is a specialised segment within our practice where cultural fit and service philosophy alignment are even more critical than in mainstream hotels. We maintain strong networks in India's luxury hotel ecosystem — spanning heritage properties, international luxury brands, and boutique experiential resorts. Our assessment for luxury roles includes in-depth evaluation of service culture, personalisation philosophy, and high-net-worth guest relationship management.
GMs of large 5-star hotels in India typically earn ₹80 lakh to ₹1.8 crore CTC. Area Directors and Regional VPs of major hotel chains typically command ₹1.5–3 crore. CEOs of hotel holding companies and hospitality groups typically earn ₹2–5 crore. Online travel and hospitality tech CEOs typically earn ₹1.5–4 crore with ESOP components. We provide current, property-type-specific compensation benchmarks for every hospitality search.
CXO Self Serve Portal · Invitation-only
Track C-suite movements in Hospitality.
Observer members receive the weekly Whisper digest tuned to your profile — hospitality mandate briefs, leadership moves, and market context delivered privately. No public footprint.