What the SAMHI Hotels–RARE India Deal Signals for Experiential Hospitality

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.

Experiential travel has become one of the industry’s fastest-growing segments. Boutique hotels alone are expected to grow from $28 billion in 2025 to over $50 billion by 2033, as travelers increasingly prefer stays defined by local context, design, and storytelling.

However, the very qualities driving demand also make the category difficult to scale. Experiential hospitality relies on individuality — independent owners, local context, and minimal standardization by design. While investors are increasingly drawn to the segment due to rising luxury travel spend and an industry expected to surpass $2 trillion globally over the next decade, boutique and owner-led hotels have resisted the kind of standardization that enables growth. 

SkiftX spoke with RARE India Founder Shoba Rudra about how the company plans to scale its curated hospitality model following investment from SAMHI Hotels.

SkiftX: RARE India has been operating for over two decades. What has stayed consistent in your approach to curation, and what has had to evolve to stay relevant?

Shoba Rudra: What’s stayed consistent is our approach to curation. We’ve always focused on boutique, offbeat properties powered by the owner’s vision and the destination’s story, and they remain our strongest finds. We’re quite selective about the hotels we take on — we meet the owners first, understand what they’re trying to build and how, and that drives the decision. Even in cities, where it’s harder to find “offbeat” options, we look for properties rooted in conservation, heritage, craft, cuisine, or cultural preservation.

What has evolved is our understanding of the market. We were largely focused on inbound travel in the early years, but over time, we’ve consciously expanded our strategy to include the Indian market. The goal is to build a portfolio that resonates as a unique offering for global travelers. 

What made SAMHI Hotels the right partner for RARE India at this stage of its journey? What gap were you looking to fill?

We’ve had several investment conversations over the years, but most were focused on scaling quickly or leveraging the brand in ways that didn’t align with our ethos. Some even wanted just the brand, not the business, which was quite disheartening, because for us, RARE India stands for a certain way of looking at travel — community, art, culture, sustainability, and authenticity. I couldn’t live with that. Given the competition, I’d rather have closed the business than compromise on that vision, built over 30 years in travel. 

What stood out from the first meeting was that SAMHI Hotels understood the core of what we had built and the brand’s legacy. From the very first conversation, the emphasis was on preserving the vision. There was no push to indiscriminately standardize or scale. The thinking was very clear: RARE should remain “rare.”

RARE India mostly operated in the B2B space pre-pandemic. What drove the push towards a more direct consumer presence, and how did that change the business model?

RARE India has always been a values-led business. We started in 2003, when this segment was still taking shape, and built it organically out of a genuine belief in boutique, experiential, and offbeat travel. Over time, we created a strong, well-respected collection, and the model itself was membership-driven. We supported hotels with visibility, positioning, and destination-centric narratives, while bookings flowed directly to them.

Post-pandemic, it became clear that we needed to evolve into a more bookable platform and strengthen the revenue side of the business. With a membership-led B2B model, revenues are limited to fees, whereas a more consumer-facing approach allows us to participate in the transaction and measure impact. 

We already had a strong base to build on — our social media, newsletters, and a loyal database of travelers who’d been engaging with RARE for years. We just needed to convert that engagement into cumulative revenue, and in the face of this boom, continue to build value for this small community that has stayed loyal to RARE. 

Experiential hospitality is growing, but it’s also difficult to scale. Where does scaling start to break in experiential hospitality, and how are you designing the model to avoid that?

Scaling breaks when you start standardizing the product. As soon as properties start to look or feel the same, you lose what makes them special in the first place. For us, the idea has always been that no two hotels should look or sound alike, because they can’t. 

We’re only looking to scale around the systems that support the hotel, not the hotel itself, as they’re perfectly RARE as they are. That means better distribution, stronger global visibility, and the right technology so that each property can reach the right audience and convert demand into bookings that RARE can track. 

Where will this partnership most tangibly change the business over the next 12–24 months (supply growth, distribution reach, technology, or something else)?

We’ve consistently delivered value to our partners, but the industry landscape has changed. The boutique segment has grown significantly, and with that comes a different kind of competition. Even if a hotel is in a remote, offbeat location, it’s no longer just competing locally — it’s competing with every other boutique property in the market. 

To stay relevant in that environment, we need global visibility, better distribution, and a stronger technology backbone. Moving from being a discovery platform to a truly bookable platform is a key shift that requires the right tech stack.

The partnership also allows us to invest in people — retaining talent, bringing in new capabilities, and expanding both our online and offline presence. The most immediate changes will be in distribution, technology, global brand awareness, and strengthening the ecosystem around our hotels.

As RARE India expands, what does “quality control” look like in a curated network, and how do you enforce it?

Curation still sits entirely with us, and every story we tell is real, not performative. The investment doesn’t change that. I continue to run the business, and the SAMHI Hotels leadership has been very clear that they don’t want to change anything. 

However, there will be some evolution at the margins. For example, our minimum room count will likely increase from the earlier 8-15 keys to closer to 12-20, so that each property can support a certain level of commercial viability.

On the portfolio side, we had over 100 hotels at one point, then consciously reduced it to manage better, given a lean team and no technology. Now, with stronger technology and distribution, we’re looking to build back. However, the principle remains the same: no two hotels will look or feel alike, and the focus will continue to be on the experience and story each place tells.

You’ve spoken about tourism for good and community-led travel. What does community-led tourism look like in practice at the property level, and how do you measure whether it’s working?

Around 60% of our hotels hire locally, with 20–30% coming from the immediate vicinity and the rest from within a 60-mile radius. We also have a few hotels that are almost entirely run by the local community. 

The idea is to create opportunities within the region so people don’t feel the need to move away. Urban migration often comes with trade-offs in quality of life, so several of our partner hotels consciously focus on building livelihoods closer to home.

We also place strong emphasis on how the hotel fits into its surroundings. This includes using local materials, vernacular architecture, regional crafts, and local food traditions. When this is done well, the property feels connected to its surroundings, and that has a ripple effect. You start to see crafts revived, local cuisines returning, and even farming practices returning because there’s renewed demand. There’s also a sense of pride when the community sees their village reflected in the hotel design and recognized as an experience. 

In terms of measurement, employment is one indicator, but we also look at how closely the hotel is connected to its landscape and community, and whether it’s helping sustain or revive something within that tourism ecosystem of nature, culture, local arts, and cuisine. 

In three to five years, what metrics will tell you this model is working (scale, margins, brand recognition, or something else)?

The biggest metric will always be how each hotel is doing. We’ve never pushed hotels to become something they’re not, so success isn’t about how many we add, but whether the ones we have are thriving. For example, are they seeing stronger, more consistent business across seasons? Are they able to build and sustain demand? Do they feel supported and able to reach us when they need to? Accessibility and trust are very important to us.

Equally, it’s about whether they continue to see value in being part of RARE India. The hotels that stay and those that choose to join are both indicators of whether the model is working. 

While scale, margins, and brand recognition matter, they are outcomes. The real measure of success is whether each hotel can grow its business in this competitive marketplace while continuing to tell its individual story more effectively so it resonates with the right travelers.

To find out more about RARE India, visit www.rareindia.com

This content was created collaboratively by RARE India and Skift’s branded content studio, SkiftX.