The Hindu Business Line : Hyderabad hotels upbeat on record occupancy rate

THE hospitality industry in Hyderabad is upbeat with average occupancies touching an all-time high of 80 per cent in the last few months, as the city emerged as a major MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Expos) centre.

The demand for hotel rooms is so high that top corporate executives tried in vain to find a room in any of the hotels last week.

A host of business conferences and expos like Bio Asia, Gitex, Tube India and Indo-CIS Health Summit were held in the last three to four months.

Coupled with this, the city hosted Hyderabad Open tennis tournament and Duleep Trophy, Premier Hockey League and the tenth National Youth Festival during the period, attracting players from India and abroad.

"Before the IT boom the occupancies in the star hotels used to be an average 45 per cent which has now risen to an average 80 per cent," Mr Veer Vijay Singh, Area Director and General Manager, Taj Krishna, told Business Line.

Mr T.W. Sudhakar, Manager of Indiatourism, said the stakeholders have failed to recognise the potential for the hospitality industry. The MICE business in India grew by 40-50 per cent last year. Yet, the room strength had not grown accordingly.

"It takes about two years to set up a star hotel. They should have thought of the imminent boom," he said.

Last year, tourist inflows grew by 23.5 per cent at 2.73 million. The `Incredible India' campaign being taken up by the Government played a major role in this. "But the room strength had not gone up proportionate to it. "It (the industry) closed its eyes," Mr Sudhakar said.

The country lagged behind in number of rooms. "We need 70,000 more as against the present 63,000," he said, quoting a survey on the availability of two-star to five-star rooms.

"Compare this against 9.93 lakh rooms in China and 45,000 in Singapore," Mr Sudhakar said.

The hospitality industry, however, felt that the market supply was going up consistently. There were about 1,100 rooms in five-star category and 2,400 rooms in three and four-star categories.

"Presently the supply and demand position in Hyderabad seems to be well balanced and the sold-out dates are approximately 10 per cent in a year," Mr Veer Vijay said.

The industry expects further growth with the advent of Hub Hyderabad of Air Sahara and the upcoming international airport.

There would be at least four to five hotels coming up in the city such as the Taj Falaknuma Palace Hotel and two Emaar hotels with a combined capacity of 460 rooms.

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