In conversation with Deval Tibrewalla, CEO of Polo Hotels & Resorts, one thing becomes clear quickly: he is not building another hotel chain. He is building a case about the hospitality of the North East.
Polo Hotels & Resorts has spent thirty years doing something most hospitality players haven't tried: making Northeast India a legitimate luxury destination. Not by importing a five-star template and dropping it into Shillong or Cherrapunji, but by building properties that only make sense where they are. Breakfast beside a waterfall. A pool looking out at the Seven Sisters Falls. A hotel that sits on the Hooghly River, not beside it. The group now runs eight properties across the Northeast, covering Shillong, Cherrapunji, Agartala, Kolkata, Tura, and two resort properties, with five more in the pipeline.
The conversation covered a lot of ground: what makes Polo different, why the Northeast is having a moment, and where the group is headed next. But the most interesting thread was the one pointing forward: two new properties in Nagaland.
Kohima and Dimapur- the Nagaland bet
Two properties are coming: a 56-room hotel in Kohima, timed around the Hornbill Festival, expected to open within two to three months, and a 125-room property in Dimapur, the state's commercial centre. Nagaland is one of the least-penetrated hospitality markets in the entire Northeast at the organised luxury end, which is precisely why Tibrewalla is going there.
"Our job is to provide luxury within and in collaboration with nature," he says. That philosophy, applied to Nagaland, means a property in Kohima doesn't just sit near the Hornbill Festival, it becomes part of the experience of attending it.
The timing isn't accidental either. Flight connectivity into the Northeast has improved significantly, with the government actively increasing routes into the region. Infrastructure that once made the Northeast logistically complicated is getting meaningfully better. For a group that has been building here for decades, that is a structural tailwind and not a new opportunity that it just discovered.
A region that doesn't need explaining anymore
What has changed, Tibrewalla says, is the traveller. The person arriving in Cherrapunji today has already done their research. They know about the living root bridges. They've heard about the Cherrapunji gin, a hyper-local spirit that has, quietly, become a draw in its own right. They're not looking for a familiar amenity set in an unfamiliar place. They're looking for something that couldn't exist anywhere else.
This is what Tibrewalla means when he talks about "experiential luxury": not a spa menu or a thread count, but the story of a place as the product itself. The Northeast, with its distinct cultures, landscapes, and festivals, offers that in abundance. The cherry blossoms, the Hornbill Festival, Shillong's music culture are not just background but the reason someone books.
On whether this traveller is domestic or international, Tibrewalla doesn't really see a difference. The evolved traveller from Mumbai or Delhi operates on the same motivations as someone flying in from abroad: curiosity, specificity, the desire for something that can't be replicated.
On the big chains moving in
Larger operators are starting to pay attention to the Northeast. Tibrewalla doesn't dismiss this, but he doesn't seem particularly worried either. Polo's teams are local. They aren't deployed from a central operations hub; they are people with a lived understanding of the land and its communities.
"We don't want to be the biggest. We want to be the best," he says.
Three decades of relationships, cultural knowledge, and brand equity in a geography that is only now getting the infrastructure and traveller attention it deserves is a real advantage. But it is worth remembering that heritage is most powerful when the product keeps earning it. As the Northeast opens up and expectations rise, Polo's edge will depend less on how long it has been here and more on how well it continues to show up. Being first matters, but staying sharp matters more.
Whether the bigger players move aggressively or not, Polo's bet is the same: when the Northeast moment fully arrives, being the most deeply rooted will matter more than being the largest.