Vikram Dayal Lalvani, Managing Director & CEO, Sterling Holiday Resorts Limited, has been honoured with the ‘Industry Achievement Award in Indian Hospitality’ at the India Real Estate Leadership Conclave & Excellence Awards 2026, held at ITC Grand Central, Mumbai.
Co-hosted by Hurun India and GROHE, the 10th-anniversary edition brought together leaders from India’s real estate and hospitality sectors, recognising individuals and organisations for their professional achievements and contribution to their industries.
The recognition comes at a defining point in Sterling’s evolution under Lalvani’s leadership.
From a company historically associated primarily with vacation ownership, Sterling has evolved into a diversified hospitality platform spanning resorts, hotels and retreats, with leisure at its core. Its portfolio today serves a much broader spectrum of travel occasions—from family holidays and wildlife experiences to spiritual journeys, wellness, celebrations, MICE and drive-to escapes.
This transformation has combined portfolio expansion with an asset-right growth strategy, stronger operating systems, technology, experience design and a culture focused on both performance and people.
Today, Sterling has grown to 80 resorts across more than 66 destinations extending its presence across established leisure markets while increasingly entering emerging destinations earlier in their tourism journey.
At the heart of this evolution is a belief that hospitality growth cannot be measured by footprint alone.
“Hospitality leadership is not measured only by how many rooms you add, but by how many reasons you create for people to travel.”
For Sterling, that has meant looking beyond the resort to the destination itself—its landscape, culture, cuisine, wildlife, spirituality, heritage and communities—and creating experiences that help travellers discover it more deeply.
This philosophy has shaped what Sterling increasingly describes as its role as a ‘Destination Architect’: identifying destinations with potential, establishing credible hospitality infrastructure and building experiences and travel circuits around them.
Sterling’s expansion into emerging leisure, spiritual, wildlife and drive-to markets reflects this approach—entering destinations not merely because demand already exists, but because the company believes the right hospitality and experiences can help unlock it.
Lalvani has also consistently argued that scale should not result in sameness.
As Sterling expands, the company is strengthening common standards across service, technology, training and operating discipline while ensuring that the guest experience remains rooted in the character of each destination.
The principle is simple: Standardise what creates trust. Localise what creates memory.
Commenting on the recognition, Vikram Dayal Lalvani, Managing Director & CEO, Sterling Holiday Resorts, said: “An industry achievement award inevitably makes you look back, but I find myself looking forward. Indian hospitality is entering one of its most exciting periods—more Indians are travelling, their reasons for travelling are multiplying, and destinations once outside the mainstream are entering consideration.
At Sterling, our journey has been about more than expanding a network. We have tried to build relevance—entering destinations with potential, connecting them into meaningful journeys and creating experiences that encourage people to discover more of India.
This recognition belongs equally to our teams, partners and owners who have been part of that journey. The opportunity ahead is much larger than any one company: to build hospitality that creates value for travellers, destinations, communities, partners and the industry.”
The award recognises Lalvani at a point when Sterling’s next chapter is increasingly being defined by the ability to combine scale with distinctiveness, growth with discipline and technology with humanity.
Because the next chapter of Indian hospitality will not be written only by where hotels open, but by where travellers choose to go next—and why.
