Gateway Hotels pins hopes on inbound tourist traffic

The sharp fall in rupee against the US dollar since May this year augurs well for inbound tourism to India during the tourist season beginning October, but tourist-friendly infrastructure needed to be paid attention to, according to the chief operating officer of Gateway Hotels & Resorts (GHR), Prabhat Verma.

“ A weak rupee will make inbound tourist’s cost of travel in India much cheaper. Any foreign currency (in this case, rupee), which is weaker vis-à-vis the currency of one’s destination is good for the international traveller.” However, he said that India needs to work more on making itself an attractive destination for foreign travellers and scale up tourist-friendly infrastructure.

Gateway Hotels & Resorts, which belongs to Taj group of hotels and operates in the upscale segment,  opened Gateway Hotel IT Expressway, a 200-room property in Chennai on Saturday, its first there and third in Tamil Nadu. With this, GHR's room inventory stands at about 2,200 rooms.

The total investment in the Chennai project is about Rs 150 crore and is in management contract mode with LBR Hotels and Hospitality. The property is expected to break-even in about a year.

On expansion plans, Verma said, “We will also be launching two more hotels in Kolkata and Raipur this fiscal. In the next 18 months, eight more hotels will be added and in the next six to seven years, the number of rooms will be doubled.”

Overall, the Taj group plans to add 1,590 rooms this fiscal, including 600 under GHR.
The upscale segment in India had a demand-supply mismatch last fiscal, according to a Taj group presentation for analysts this May, with supply growth outstripping demand growth by 3 per cent and consequently impacted occupancy and average room revenues. The skewness was more pronounced in  Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, according to the presentation.