Ginger group of hotels embarks on pan India expansion

Kolkata, Mar 06 (UNI) Ginger Hotels, the "Smart Basic hotels" of the Indian Hotels Company Limited(IHCL)has embarked on an expansion plan to open a chain of 25 star hotels in Tier II and III cities across the country by next year with an estimated investment of Rs 250 crores.

Announcing future programmes of Ginger Hotels on the eve of its opening the first of 25 hotels at the steel city of Durgapur in West Bengal, its Chief Executive Officer Prabhat Pani here today claimed that the Smart Basics concepts had created a special nitche in the burgeoing Indian hospitality market as it characterised 'freshness, simplicity,reasonable and innovative' in terms of providing unique services to the customers.

He said since the opening of the first Ginger Hotel in Bangalore in 2005,as many as five such hotels had come up in Mysore, Bhubaneswar, Thiruvananthapuram,Pune and Hardwar till now with all of them enjoying more than 80 per cent occupancy round the year.

Realising the huge potential in the Indian hospitality market for this kind of two and three star hotels the Ginger Hotel group had decided to go for a major expansion in all the four regions of the country before setting its foot abroad.

Accordingly, Mr Pani informed,the Group had either already purchased the necessary land or in the final stages of acquiring them or getting them through long lease holdings in a number of smaller towns and cities like Goa, Pondicherry, Agartala, Panthnagar, Baroda, Tirupur, Nasik,Guwahati,Ludhiana,Jamshedpur,Mangalore,Paradip and Ahmedabad among others for setting up new Ginger Hotels there. Of them the construction work in Goa,Pondicherry and Agartala was nearing completion to start the business by September this year, Mr Pani said adding that in West Bengal the first 100 room Ginger Hotel would be inaugurated by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee in Durgapur tomorrow before opening at least four more at Rajarhat near Kolkata, Siliguri,Haldia and Kharagpur towns by next year.

Highlighting the stupendous growth of tourism and hotel industries in India for the past few years, Mr Pani said each of their no frills hotels are having or would have 100 to 150 rooms each with a choice of single,twin and queen sized rooms.

Despite being basic hotels, each room will be individually air- conditioned and provided with flat screen colour television, satellite channels,direct dial STD phone facility besides other items for general comfort.

Moreover,in absence of any personalised room service,each room would be provided with a 24 hour tea and coffee maker and a mini fridge as unique features,Mr Pani said.All these services would be available at Ginger hotels with room rents varying between Rs 900 and Rs 1200 for every night to provide further boost to the industry as well as to the national economy,Mr Pani said.

UNI