Marriott International has introduced its new “Series by Marriott” brand with a landmark rollout of 26 Fern Hotels & Resorts across India in partnership with Concept Hospitality Private Limited. Adding 1,900 rooms across 23 cities, the launch integrates Fern properties into Marriott Bonvoy and targets India’s booming mid-to-upper scale travel market.
Marriott International has taken one of its boldest expansion steps in India yet, and it has done so overnight. With the launch of its newest brand, “Series by Marriott,” the company has added 26 hotels across 23 cities in India in a single rollout — an unprecedented move that immediately reshapes Marriott’s footprint in one of the world’s fastest-growing travel markets. The announcement, delivered between November 20 and 22, 2025, marks not just a brand debut but the arrival of a new playbook in hospitality: large-scale expansions anchored in partnerships with strong regional brands.
The new properties come into the Marriott system through a strategic collaboration with Concept Hospitality Private Limited (CHPL), best known for building The Fern Hotels & Resorts into a well-loved name across urban hubs and emerging destinations in the country. The partnership allows Fern properties to retain their local identity while operating under the new name “The Fern Hotels & Resorts, Series by Marriott.” It is a dual-strength model — Fern continues to serve guests with its regionally rooted personality, while the alliance brings the full weight of Marriott’s global sales, reservations, technology, and loyalty ecosystem.
The scale is significant beyond headline numbers. With more than 1,900 additional rooms, Marriott has strengthened its position in a hospitality segment that is undergoing rapid transformation in India: the mid-to-upper scale market. As domestic travel accelerates, driven by business corridors, tier-2 city tourism, weddings, weekend getaways, and the rise of a new generation of frequent travellers, dependability and affordability have become as important as luxury. Marriott’s strategy signals that capturing this space requires both global trust and deeply local familiarity. The integration of Fern into the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program reflects that philosophy, opening high-value membership benefits to travellers who prefer mid-scale hotels across India’s expanding travel map.
The move is also a statement of confidence in the new Indian traveller — one who favours comfort and convenience but expects thoughtful touches rather than generic checkboxes. Each property under Series by Marriott promises a curated experience: Grab n Go breakfasts, healthy sleep programs, priority safety features and amenities for solo women travellers, and evening turndown treats designed to transform business and leisure stays into something more personal. In a crowded hospitality landscape, these carefully defined guest experiences will likely become the competitive differentiator that repeated travellers remember.
The 26 properties span a mix of major metros, business hubs, tourist hotspots, and scenic retreats. Among them are The Fern Residency Ahmedabad, The Fern Residency Bengaluru, The Fern Mumbai Goregaon, The Fern Jaipur, The Fern Seaside Tent Resort Daman, The Fern Sardar Sarovar Resort Ekta Nagar, and The Fern Brentwood Resort Mussoorie, alongside destinations in Pune, Surat, Kolhapur, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Solapur and Hatgad. These choices underline the expansion’s strategic intent: to serve both the country’s densest mobility corridors and its increasingly popular leisure belts.
For Marriott, Series by Marriott is not simply a brand addition — it is a template for future-forward growth. With more than 100 additional Series properties planned globally, the India rollout is effectively the inaugural case study that could shape the brand’s global trajectory. India is not just a market in this equation; it is the launchpad. That alone indicates how the world’s largest hospitality companies now view the country’s travel economy — as a primary engine, not a peripheral one.
The hospitality industry’s transformation is also visible in how loyalty ecosystems are evolving. The entry of 26 Fern hotels into Marriott Bonvoy instantly broadens the network’s domestic map for Indian members, many of whom travel frequently for work. For Fern loyalists, meanwhile, the collaboration unlocks access to international benefits, faster reward accumulation, and higher-end global redemptions — a bridge between value and aspiration that few mid-scale brands have been able to offer.
From the perspective of Concept Hospitality Private Limited, the arrangement aligns with its vision of rapid but sustainable growth without abandoning the distinctive hospitality philosophy that has powered Fern’s success. Maintaining the Fern identity ensures continuity for guests who prefer its signature blend of comfort, familiarity, and attention to detail, while global amplification comes without the growing pains small-to-mid-sized brands typically face in international expansion.
The launch of the Series by Marriott brand arrives at a time when Indian tourism and business travel are at a historic inflection point — airports are expanding, new air routes are opening, convention centres are booming, religious tourism continues to surge, and ‘work-from-anywhere’ travellers have created entirely new patterns of hotel demand. By growing outward from India rather than inward, Marriott is signalling that the country’s hospitality evolution is not catching up to the world — it is defining it.
Across the hotel industry, there is already speculation that this launch will trigger more hybrid partnerships between global and homegrown brands, especially in markets where loyalty programs are becoming as influential as price points. The presence of Series by Marriott instantly raises the bar for consistency, value and guest familiarity in India’s mid-to-upper scale bracket, and competitors will likely react.
For now, however, the spotlight belongs to the debut itself — 26 hotels opening overnight under one brand, in one country, powered by two hospitality giants with different identities but a shared objective. Series by Marriott has arrived not as a soft rollout but as a full-scale entry, and India is the stage on which it has chosen to be seen first and loudest.
As guests begin to check in over the coming months — from corporate road warriors in Jaipur to families holidaying in Mussoorie, from weekend trippers in Daman to convention attendees in Ahmedabad — the success of Series by Marriott will be measured in a different way: whether travellers feel both the comfort of local familiarity and the confidence of global assurance in every stay.
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