Industrial centres will now have more budget hotels

EH STAFF - Mumbai

Seeing the rapid rise in demand of hotel rooms in industrial centres, budget hotels like Berggruen and Ginger Hotels are looking at setting up hotels in towns like Baddi, Chhattisgarh, Pantnagar and Pondicherry, where there is latent demand for superior services at reasonable rates.

After tapping the commercial hubs, attention is now being shifted to places around the steel, pharmaceutical and automobile industry. According to Manav Thadani, MD of HVS International-India, a global hospitality consulting firm, "Prices in these areas are affordable, so the cost of setting up a hotel is not too high and the customer gets quality accommodation at reasonable rates."

There is a demand-supply gap of budget hotels currently, and to bridge this gap, some 30,000 rooms are expected to be added in this category within a couple of years.

While Ginger Hotels, a subsidiary of the Indian Hotels Company, has set its eyes on Gujarat and Orissa, Berggruen is soon to open 25 hotels in Tier II and Tier III cities like Gurgaon, Kolkata and Chennai, as well as areas like Pantanagar and Raigad.