Foreign Tourists Turned Out, Dent in Hotels’ Image

Booming rates singe hospitality
Foreign Tourists Turned Out, Dent in Hotels’ Image
Times of India

Bangalore: The city’s hospitality industry is not being quite hospitable: while some hotels are rudely turning out foreign tourists with confirmed bookings, others are hiking room rates arbitrarily. All to cash in on the sudden boom in tourist traffic.

In this scenario, it is tour operators who are put in a spot. They are up in arms against the hotel industry’s attitude, and want the government to step in and frame guidelines on room rates.

While the national average for a five-star hotel room is $150-200 per night for a standard room, some hotels in Bangalore are hiking rates to $500-600 per night for deluxe rooms. Standard rooms are never available and tourists have to cough up huge sums of money.

For the hotels, the foreign tourist is the milch cow. While The Leela Palace and Grand Ashok are charging exorbitantly, The Oberoi is charging $300-375 per night, say tour operators. So are three- and four-star hotels: Central Park is pushing the rate to $160, Capitol to $150 and Royal Orchid Park Plaza to $200. The Taj West End, Le Meridien and St Mark’s Hotel, though, are holding their original rates.

Sources said a resort on the outskirts turned out four Sri Lankans and four Ukraineans. But Karnataka tourism officials appear helpless. “Hoteliers say they want to make good their losses and this is their chance,” an official said.

Tour operators expect a negative fall-out. Says Hi Tours managing director J. Sethuraman, “In the long run, Bangalore will lose out. Package tours for groups are fixed at least one or two years in advance and to tell them they don’t have a room is very rude. Foreign agents suspect the Indian tour operator of playing on the rates, and this gives us a bad reputation.’’

Adds Hi Tours vice-president M.K. Ajit Kumar, “Group foreign tourists are very important for local economies. Hotels and airlines anyway make their killing due to corporate clientele and expats, but the local economy is affected as only tourists go on shopping sprees.’’

He said the tourism department should intervene with guidelines for tariff changes for at least one year. “Hotels should not be permitted to make arbitrary changes in tariffs, based on seasonal demands or due to conferences.’’ Tourism boards of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka monitor hotel rates, he added.

P. Asoka, president of the Tourist Guides Federation of India, said there is a boost because of IT. While airlines and car operators are making merry, tourist night halts are decreasing. Tourists skip Bangalore and go straight to Mysore and Hassan, preferring to take evening flights out of the city.