Carlson to employ around 30,000 people in India by 2015

Mumbai, Jan 16 (PTI) Global hospitality major Carlson,which runs the luxury chain Radisson, plans to open 19 morehotels in India by the year-end and 100 by 2015 with a totalexpected headcount of 30,000 by then, a company official said.

The US-based hotel chain currently employs around10,000 people across its 34 hotels (3,234 rooms) in India.

"We plan to open 19 more hotels this calender year.

These hotels will help generate 6,000 employmentopportunities. We already employ around 10,000 people acrossall our hotels under operation," Carlson Hotels President andCEO Hubert Joly told PTI here.

The company has already signed management contractsfor about 54 hotels, of which 19, with a total of 2,670 rooms,will open this year. The total project cost of these 19 hotelsis estimated at around Rs 2,250 crore.

Of these 19 hotels, 11 are Radisson to be opened inAgra, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Chennai, Ghaziabad, Goa, GreaterNoida, Haridwar, Hyderabad, Ranchi and Rudrapur, Joly said.

While two Country Inns will come up at Gurgaon andMussourie, 1 Park Inn will be opened in New Delhi (CBD) and 5Park Plazas will open at Bangalore, Chandigarh, Coimbatore,New Delhi and New Delhi (Dwarka).

Park Plaza is in the premium segment and CountryInn and Suites and Park Inn are in the mid-segment. About 90per cent of the hotels are operated, globally, throughmanagement contracts and franchise model.

"We are quite optimistic about the India''s tourismand travel growth story. We see India as a strategicdestination with enormous opportunity and hence plan toscale-up our operations here," Joly said. (more) PTI PPRSY

Carlson also has a minority stake of 26 per cent in Country Development