Newstrack

Shortfall of 1,50,000 hotel rooms by 2010: Planning Commission

EH staff - Mumbai

The Planning Commission's High Level Group on services sector has released a services competitiveness report on India which reveals grim figures for the tourism industry. It pegs the room shortage in the country at 1,50,000 rooms by 2010, out of which more than 1,00,000 will be in the budget category.

The report also points out that unofficial estimates put the number of rooms at one million. But the end of 2006-07, the number of rooms in hotels in star categories approved by the Ministry of Tourism was only 1,00,000, out of which 30 per cent were in five-star and five star-deluxe categories. The room crunch is further evident by absolute figures - the number of rooms in Bangkok (60,000) far exceeds the number of rooms in Delhi (20,000) and Mumbai (25,000) put together. With tourists being driven to more competitive destinations owing to the situation, the High Level Group has suggested a slew of measures to increase tourism com petitiveness:

• Land use conversions of agricultural, institutional, and residential use land into hotel use
• A higher Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in congested areas
• Long-term lease or on a revenue sharing basis instead of land auctions
• Railway land for development of budget hotels by competitive bidding, on PPP basis.
• Additional land for hotel construction in the 48 non-metro airports and two metro airports
• Long-term leases of state government corporations' hotels and hotel-like properties to professional private sector hoteliers on the basis of international competitive bidding
• Grant infrastructure status under Section 80- 1A of the Income Tax Act to convention centres
• State governments with tourism activity should consider enacting 'Special Tourism Zones' for planned development
• Increasing entertainment options such as casinos, sound and light shows at major historical sites for leisure tourists
• Creation of tourism clusters of areas between 100 and 500 acres within a distance of 150 kms for the cities for the setting up of a cluster of facilities and attractions for tourism
• Expansion of education and training in hotel management, food crafts, travel and tourism education (including the training of tour guides) should be left to the private sector and both the National Council of Hotel Management & Catering Technology (NCHMCT) and the Indian Institute of Travel & Tourism Management (IITM) should function as apex institutions
• Encouragement of B&B
• Adoption of single-window clearance of hotel projects.