Railways plans to set up 100 budget hotels before C'wealth Games

New Delhi, Mar 17 (UNI) Propelled by booming tourism as well as scarcity of hotel rooms ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the national capital, the Railways has set its eyes on new vistas in the hospitality sector, with the country's biggest public sector enterprise planning to set up over 100 budget hotels on its vacant land.

Mr P.K. Goel, Executive Director (Tourism) at the Rail Bhavan, today said the Railways was pursuing the matter with leading hotel chains, including the largest hotel group, Indian Hotels Co Ltd and the ITC-owned Welcomgroup chain of hotels.

''We have had a very good response to the budget hotel project and our tenders should be out soon,'' Mr Goel told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on ''Public-Private Partnerships in the Railways''.

Mr Goel said the Board had approved about 40 hotels but plans were afoot to expand the number to 100. ''We have an ambitious target,'' he pointed out.

The first budget hotels would be built in the national capital as part of efforts to prepare the capital for the 2010 Commonwealth Games that will be hosted by the national capital.

He said the Railways owned prime real estate all over the country and would provide land to the hotel chains on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis for a 30-year period.

Indian Hotels, a part of the Tata group, runs the luxury Taj chain with 11 properties in India and six abroad. The Kolkata-based ITC is 31.7 per cent owned by British American Tobacco Private Ltd Company.

The budget hotels, consistent with the country's hospitality industry witnessing both business and leisure travel boom, will boost the Railways' revenues.

''The railways have the potential to carry over five million foreign visitors and 400 million domestic tourists a year,'' Mr Goel said in his presentation at the conference.

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