Hotel tariffs in Bangalore have skyrocketed during recent times, increasing by 15 per cent to 20 per cent across the board in the last six months alone, according to Tourism Secretary I M Vittala Murthy.

He appealed to the hoteliers not to let the tariffs “hit the roof” since the high rates were only driving many tour operators and tourists away from Bangalore.

The issue came up at the launch of the 59th Travel and Tourism Fair (TTF) here on Saturday. The high tariffs not only affected tourists bound for Bangalore, but those headed to other parts of Karnataka as well, he observed.

Stressing on a mechanism to regulate the hotel rates, Tourism Director Dr C Somashekara said the tariffs in luxury star hotels ranged anywhere between Rs 14,000 and Rs 15,000 a night, almost double the amount charged four years ago. In Hyderabad and Kochi, star hotels with the same facilities charged only between Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000, he informed.

Shortage of rooms

Bangalore has a demand for 18,000 to 20,000 rooms every day. While 6,000 rooms would come up with the new hotels in the pipeline, there would still be a shortage of 9,000 rooms, according to the tourism director.

To make a detailed study of the trends in occupancy rates, he said the Tourism Department was contemplating the introduction of a streamlined reporting system where hotels could report the number of vacancies and occupancies on a monthly basis. Since many Bangalore hotels had a high occupancy rate during weekdays and not weekends, special rates during weekends could be an option, he suggested.