According to an article by Michael J. Pajak, Associate, HVS New Delhi, prominent hotel consultants, India needs approximately 160,000 new rooms in the nation’s top 25 markets.
Some of the other key points mentioned in the article which I feel augurs good for India include
- All the new supply entering the market will result in rate rationalization; each market will vary based on supply but HVS anticipates many markets to achieve stabilized rates in 2012.
- This rate consolidation will also serve to induce demand from the mid-level domestic leisure segment and the meeting and conference segment, both of which were previously priced out of the market.
- The industry will further benefit from the rising disposable income levels among Indians as the number of domestic holidays increases as well as per trip spending.
But what is the fun of doing business in India without a bit of chaos? Try to find some travel and tourism statistics and the first stumbling blocks are obvious.
In his article Pajak says ”Unfortunately, domestic tourism statistics are grossly skewed and all domestic travel is registered as tourism regardless of purpose of trip. Based on these recording principles, domestic tourism visitation totaled roundly 529 million in 2007. Even if a mere 10% of the estimated domestic visitation can be correlated to tourism then India benefited from approximately 53 million domestic tourists in 2007. Regardless of purpose of visit, domestic travel increased by 140% between 2000 and 2007, which can be viewed as an extremely positive trend for the lodging industry.”
Great opportunities indeed, and in spite of economic gloom in many parts of the world, the Indian hotel industry may just weather it well.|We will have to wait and watch….
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India has traditionally always been a very hard country to negotiate for the budget traveller - a bit like a lottery as far as getting accomodation right is concerned. Sometimes you’d get amazing value and sometimes you get a complete wreck of a hotel for an unreasonable price.
At the top end, travellers usually had ample choice from the best luxury hotels although no one could label them cheap.
But with the fast growth in the sector, there are signs of change and hope for the budget traveller. Some of the new brands in this sector include Ginger, Lemon Tree, Hometel & Premier Travel Inn.
Ginger, a TATA enterprise, has twelve hotels with another 6 hotels coming up and offers great value rooms with the latest technology including self check-in options. www.gingerhotels.com
Lemontree hotels have five hotels already operational and has another ten in the pipeline.
And over 10 Hometels are expected to come up in the next two years, with the Hyderabad and Mumbai properties opening within this year.
Kamat Hotel group is planning around 50 Kamfotels in the next years.
So what gives to make these all so reasonable priced? Not service apparently - No-frills hotels usually maintain an employee per room ratio of about 0.5, in India it could be as high as 1.5.
Welcome news indeed for the budget traveller - with the price range for most of these hotels ranging between 1500 and 4000 INR (approximately £20 to 50) a night.
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