Most hotels are rather unenthusiastic this year due to lack of interest among their customers to have a blast before ringing in the New Year, 2017. To keep their kitchen warm and running, many a hotel have even reduced package rates by 2 to 3% in a bid to somehow cheer the crowd back to the hotels.

Perhaps anticipating more ‘pain’ coming after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Address to the Nation on Saturday (December 31)—“he may yet spoil our New Year celebrations!”, rued one — some people have postponed their New Year celebrations as the demonetization deadline ended on Friday

Business and industry body Assocham, on Friday, said demonetization and the consequent cash crunch may have some impact on New Year's Eve celebrations as bookings received by star-rated hotels in metros have registered a decline of about 5-7 per cent.

A fortnight-long survey undertaken by Assocham Social Development Foundation said, besides, many hotels have not even revised rates of New Year packages and have, in fact, lowered the rates, bundling various offers, promotions, deals and discounts on services in one package at a bargain price.

While some party-goers are hoping to get good discounts at star properties, most others plan to celebrate the New Year’s Eve at house parties with friends and family or at their home.

The Foundation had interacted with about 50 star-rated hotels in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai to ascertain how top hotels in metros are gearing up for the annual New Year’s Eve parties. It also interacted with about 250 youngsters to gauge how people in urban centres are planning to bid farewell to 2016. Most said they plan to usher in the New Year in a cost-effective way by opting to party indoors, said D S Rawat, Secretary-General, Assocham.

“Star-rated hotels seem to be reeling under some impact of the Centre’s move of demonetization, more so as this is really the best season for hotel industry. But they are being forced to scale down their New Year’s Eve activities as they are not able to draw many people,” he said.

Many of the participants with moderate budget said demonetisation has certainly dented their plans in this regard. Some even said they were shying away from splurging the much-needed cash on new outfits, food and drinks which used to be a sort of norm.

But those with bigger budgets said they were hoping to get some good deals/discounts as many hotels are likely to do away with usual price-hikes in entry fees and drinks costs.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW