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Varada Bhat

Mumbai, Dec. 2 Hotels across the country are becoming a casualty to sweeping cancellation of bookings from corporate travellers and overseas visitors, with travel advisories being issued by different countries after last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai.

“Since the last few days, nobody has been coming,” Mr Anil Madhok, Managing Director of Sarovar hotels, told Business Line. Occupancy rate has dipped to 30 per cent from 90 per cent in the previous week, he added.

Echoing a similar sentiment Mr Dilawar Nensey, Joint Managing Director of the Royal Palms, said, room occupancies have plummeted to 15 per cent in the past few days. “For the next (few) days, we have already received around 10 per cent cancellation,” he added.

Mr Madhok is positive that this trend will continue for a week to ten days as some tourists are apprehensive to enter five-star hotels.

InterContinental-The Lalit’s General Manager, Mr Sudhendu Pandit admitted, without divulging details, that the hotel’s business has been affected. “We have felt the repercussions in our business, but all for the nearest future and we are monitoring the business situation,” he added.

Various foreign embassies have issued several travel alerts in the past week advising its citizens to defer their travel, unless it is essential. The US consulate and the American centre were closed on Monday to assist US victims of the terrorist attacks.

Usually, countries put out alerts after the blasts that are localised. But in this case, the initial advice restricting travel to Mumbai has been extended to the rest of the country, the consulate’s Web site indicated. Travel industry representatives said, alerts will have an immediate and negative impact on business travel.

In fact, Mumbai airport officials said American and European carriers had cancelled several flights last week, some of them because their cabin crews were put up at the hotels that were attacked. Mumbai Airport officials said several American and European carriers such as Delta, Northwest and Lufthansa had cancelled their services last week in aftermath of terror attacks.

More Stories on : Hotels | Terrorism

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