Ginger,
the budget hotel arm of India Hotels that also owns
the luxury hotel chain Taj, plans to set up a string
of hotels on the top floors of malls, reports NDTV..
Most malls find it difficult to find tenants for third,
fourth or fifth floors since most retailers want to
stick to lower levels. Ginger Hotels now will take up
these floors and set up their hotels here.
Being in a mall suits Ginger's business model perfectly
as well. "Our guests can use the mall for dining
and their entertainment needs," said Prabhat Pani,
CEO, Ginger.
Ginger has already tied up with Aerens for their mall
in Ludhiana and is also tying up with Ansal API for
their malls across the country.
The biggest concern for anyone setting up a hotel in
the country is the cost of land. While luxury hotel
owners can afford to pay a premium to be in the centre
of the city, budget hotels need land cheap to keep costs
down.
Ginger hopes that this tie up could bring down their
cost per room by as much as 10 per cent and also allow
hotels to come up in prime commercial locations in cities.
"This model will allow us to keep our tariffs
low even in metros," said Pani.
Ginger plans to have its first mall hotel ready by
March 2008. It has identified two more sites in Punjab.
While Ginger will use this model mostly for metro and
bigger non-metro cities, it will also continue to building
standalone hotels wherever it can find land cheap.
http://www.ndtvprofit.com
|