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DDA to auction hotel sites

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

The hotels would be completed before the Commonwealth Games

NEW DELHI: In a move that would add about 7,000 hotel rooms to Delhi and thereby end the shortage giving a major fillip to tourism, Delhi Development Authority would be in the coming week auction nine hotel sites in the Capital and this would be followed by the auction of another 13 sites in the near future.

Together the 22 hotels, with between 300 and 500 rooms each, would significantly contribute to enhancing the accommodation for the tourists. "All these hotels are expected to come up in a three year time frame," Vice-Chairman of DDA Dinesh Rai said, adding that as such they would be completed well before the Commonwealth Games 2010.

In addition to these hotels, DDA would also be auctioning sites for between six and eight hotels in the Commonwealth Games Village complex on National Highway 24 near Akshardham Temple. "At the Games Village itself we would be making arrangements for the stay of about 7,500 athletes and officials," Mr Rai said.

The move to auction hotel sites assumes significance since the Tourism Ministry had been clamouring for adding more hotel accommodation to the city to cater to the increased tourist inflow into the Capital. As per the Ministry, in 2005 alone there were about 39 lakh international tourists who visited India. This was a 13.2 per cent increase over the previous year's level. Simultaneously, the foreign exchange earning from them was Rs 25,172 crores, a jump of 16.5 per cent over the previous year.

Hotel room supply is important in Delhi because of all international arrivals in India about 61 per cent visit the Capital. And of the international tourists, about 22 per cent prefer starred hotels. In 2001, the number of five star hotels in Delhi was 24, of four-star was nine, of three stars was 11 and of one-star was nine. Along with 1091 supplementary category hotels, they provided about 20,600 hotel rooms.

But since about 60 per cent tourists come for leisure, recreation and holidaying and only about 25 per cent come for business, starred accommodation becomes important. With the international tourist forecast for Delhi being 18 lakh in 2010 and of domestic tourists being 35.8 lakhs in the same year, Delhi would get about 10,412 starred rooms then for foreign tourists and about 2,366 starred rooms for domestic tourists. With the demand-supply gap being projected at 2,988 in 2010, the hotel auction announced by DDA would go a long way in addressing the needs of the future.

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