new delhi marriott international the worlds largest hospitality company and the biggest sectoral player in india has set a target to take the combined number of open and pipeline hotels in the country to 250 by 2025 with 141 hotels operational and 70 in pipeline as of now the american majors president ceo anthony capuano says conversions will play a key role in the growth globally and in india too marriott had last year taken over the iconic leela goa and converted that into a st regis and more such high profile badge changes may happen in coming monthscapuano met prime minister modi on thursday who asked the group to look beyond big cities and look at other places like indias pristine islands and palaces pm modi encouraged us to look at some of the palaces he is keenly focussed on continued growth of the hospitality industry in india the pm encouraged us to grow not just in primary cities but in secondary and tertiary cities across the country he spoke about different destinations places islands with the idea being for us to go to unexplored areas and create hotel infra there so that people can visit those places he talked with great enthusiasm about the growth of the indian middle class and its growth to explore the country capuano saidmarriott currently is present in 40 cities in india and has the largest number of branded hotel rooms in india at over 27000 it will soon be present in over 50 indian cities in coming monthsthe one thing the pm was very enthused about is that fact that a lot of indian owners who have settled abroad are now wanting to return to india and make hotels or invest in hotels here especially in their home states or home citiesat a conference in india this week i felt i was back in the us as a number of our valued partners in the us were here to explore opportunities to develop hotels in their home countries the pm was very happy to hear this the ceo saidsixty per cent of all hotels in the us are owned by indians or indianamericans even in our company 25 of our executive suite is indian you feel an inherent interest and passion for hospitality when you travel across india so to me its not surprising that indians have a disproportionate impact on the global hospitality industry capuano saidthe group says some owners of marriott properties in india are looking at the proposed divestment of the capitals ashoka hotel closely and if one of them emerges as the successful bidder the ashoka could become a marriott there is definitely interest and we will look at many of our partners rajeev menon marriotts president asia pacific saidabout conversions the presidentceo said there has been a constriction in the debt market globally for new construction due to the economic uncertainty in such times we tend to see a downward pressure on the pace of new