Indian Hotels, which owns the Taj chain, plans to export its budget hotel offering to locations, which have a large number of mid-category travellers passing through.

"The offering we have in mind would be ideally suited for the large number of people who travel on a per diem budget and pass through a location because it is major transportation or meeting hub or an information technology hotspot," Raymond Bickson, managing director of Indian Hotels, said.

Indian Hotels will open its first such property at Bangalore within this financial year. However, the budget offering was unlikely to bear the Taj tag and would go under new brand to be finalised in the next two or three months.

Bickson said there was an opportunity for the product at major pilgrimage centres as well. The properties would be between 100 to 200 rooms in size, would be built on a standard modular plan and would be rapidly scalable in terms of room numbers. he added.

While the budget offering would mark a step by Indian Hotels to move into the mid-class segment of the hospitality chain, it would also be investing Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) to set up the first luxury apartment complex called Wellington Mews in Mumbai.

Bickson said there existed a large and untapped market for luxury serviced apartments at key locations in India and abroad.

This apart the chain would be investing up to Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) in spas at key properties. The investment would be in partnership with property owners or spa operators and would be routed through a separate division in the company.

The spas would be between 10,000-20,000 sq.ft in size and cost Rs 2-3 crore (Rs 20-30 million) each.