Bangalore hotels are world’s 3rd costliest

Bangalore hotels are world’s 3rd costliest

Daily News and Analysis


BANGALORE: Boomtown Bangalore now has another distinction. The city’s five-star hotels have seen such steep tariff raises this year that they have become the third most expensive in the world after Moscow and Rome, according to a survey conducted by Business Travel International (BTI), a leading corporate travel management company.

“This is hardly surprising as hotels in Bangalore get whatever prices they want since demand far outstrips availability,” BTI-SITA chief operating officer Vijay Chadda told DNA.

The average room rent (ARR) in Bangalore five-stars in the January-June period this year was £147.83, an increase of 42 per cent over the corresponding six months last year. Moscow (ARR £165.2) and Rome (£157.6) have seen lesser increases of 29 and 13 per cent, respectively, but their tariff levels remain more expensive than Bangalore’s.

Mohan Kumar, general manager of the Taj West End in Bangalore, attributes the high tariffs to the “forces of supply and demand” and calls the city the epicentre of huge economic growth.

Indeed, Bangalore’s nine luxury hotels with 1,524 rooms are grossly inadequate for the explosion in demand. This often leads to ludicrous situations. Finding no rooms in Bangalore, many foreign delegates stay in Chennai and keep shuttling across.

Chitra Salim, accommodation manager at the Taj Residency, Bangalore, said, “The only solution is more hotel rooms and more service apartments.”

Fed up with the shortage of rooms, Infosys has just built its own 500-room hotel-like facility, Le Terrace, on its campus for guests. Wipro also has a 100-room facility and plans to build another soon. “Besides the unavailability of rooms, we also want the guests closer to our campus because of poor roads,” an Infosys executive said.