The Hindu Business Line : Manhattan NRI Chatwal plans Dream hotels here

THE hospitality industry will have one more contender to deal with soon. Mr Sant Singh Chatwal, one of the most influential Indians of Manhattan and known to be close to the Clintons and the Democratic Party, is bringing his boutique hotels to India. His `hautel couture' range of hotels, christened `Dream', is slated to come up in three locations - Jaipur, Mumbai and Amritsar.

Though Mr Chatwal is primarily here to accompany US Senator, Ms Hillary Clinton, on her first interaction with the Prime Minster, Mr Manmohan Singh, the hotel venture is also on his agenda.

Part of his $750-million Hamshire Hotels & Resorts chain, which has a presence in the US, Canada and the UK, the first Dream Hotel is to open near Jaipur in 2006 at an investment of about $15 million and will herald his entry into "the new land of opportunity".

"It's the perfect time for India. From Ethiopia I shifted to the US and started my first hotel in Montreal in 1977. It is now time to turn to India as the country is on the verge of a boom," said Mr Chatwal.

Mr Chatwal's Mumbai project that is to be up and running by 2007 will entail an investment of $40 million, while in Amritsar the group is still in the process of scouting for land.

"The hotel in Amritsar is planned so that my grandchildren get to be near the Golden Temple," says this devout Sikh who is the only Indian from the US to have received the `Order of Khalsa' in 1999 from the Punjab Government.

The Dream Hotels in India will be planned on the same lines as their New York counterparts, with branded Deepak Chopra Ayurvedic Health Spas to boot.

The boutique hotels have been entrusted to his 33-year-old son, Mr Vikram Chatwal, dubbed `the Turban Cowboy' by the New York Observer in a recent profile and actor of One Dollar Curry fame.

His second son, 30 year-old Mr Vivek Chatwal, is the Financial Controller of the group.

"We opened a restaurant in India 20 years ago, but it did not take off ... We didn't even manage a liquor licence at that time. Today India is different," he said. And Mr Chatwal sees himself at the right place at the right time.

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