Luxury company Quorum Club ventures into meetings and event space business with District150

New Delhi: Quorum Club Pvt Ltd, a company that operates The Quorum, a members-only club, has launched a new meetings and events venture, District150. The company said its first development is in Hyderabad in partnership with Devbhumi Realtors Pvt Ltd, owned by the Sattva Group and Blackstone India Real Estate. 

The company also runs The Quorum Club in Hyderabad along with the same owners and is spread over 70,000 sq. feet in the marquee Knowledge City development.

Vivek Narain, Quorum Club's founder, told Mint that the idea of the meeting space was conceived based on the structural shift in the way people work post covid, having a space that can be utilised after office hours end, and the need for offices to provide hospitality-grade amenities in workspaces. The space will double up as a cultural hub during non-work hours that can host performances, pop-up events, workshops, theatre and wedding and other events and has about 35,000 sq. feet of space. About ₹16.5 crore has been invested by the developer into the facility.

It is banking on the fact that a lot of the hotel inventory has been delayed due to the pandemic and there is an absence of good banqueting and meeting spaces in most big cities. This will be a management contract model.

The company had started operations in 2018 in Gurgaon under Quorum Club LLP where it opened its first members' club. In 2021, in Mumbai, it took over the operations of 'The A', a 40,000 sq feet club in Lower Parel’s One World Centre which was a workspace and a social club. Earlier this year, it changed to Quorum Club Private Limited.

The company will look to expand to major cities in the country and could potentially have multiple venues, depending on the scalability in that location. “Unlike Quorum Club, which would not make sense if there is more than one in a city, because it will cannabalise on its other outlet, this could be present in multiple locations,” he said.

Narain added, “The role of the office building is changing. We have been talking with owners and operators to develop hotel type assets in these buildings. And with work becoming increasingly hybrid, the office of the future will need flexible spaces that have hospitality and are purpose-built events. This is a convergence space where an office meets a hotel. There is now an emphasis on amenity rich, experiential offerings in commercial buildings."

Adrija Agarwal at Sattva Group said, “Not only will it serve as a great amenity with high quality meeting spaces and events infrastructure, but also add to the social and cultural infrastructure of the city."

In 2020, the Ministry of Tourism estimated the market size of the MICE segment in India at ₹37,576 crore in which nearly 60% was for meeting, incentive and conference. It said that 65% of the entire business comes from B2B events. It added that events account for about ₹4,800 crore from space rentals but it has multiplier impact to economy in terms of accommodation, traveling, communication and advertisement, remuneration to skilled work force etc.