With the Indian hospitality industry planning to maintain the same price range for rooms as last year, vacationers this festive season will not feel the pinch of the usual 10%-15% hike in room rates every October.
The economic crisis and Mumbai terror attacks in November last year impacted the industry in a big way, leading to lower occupancy rates and reduced revenues of major hotels.
"Most hotels in the country are expected to maintain the room rates at the last year's levels, as the market is still to recover completely and any further increase will just worsen matters," said SP Jain, Pride Hotels chairman and president of the hotel and restaurant association of western India.
He added that occupancy rates are showing around 5%-7% improvement from last October.
As per a report on the Indian hotel industry by HVS International, covering 30 cities/regions in India, the average occupancy in 2007-08 stood at 69.4%, while the average room rate stood at Rs 4,605 per day in 2007-08.
Vivek Nair, vice-chairman and managing director of The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts, said, "Based on demand and supply economics of travellers, the rates could go up. However, they will not be what hotels charged in the peak season of 2006 or 2007."
As per the tourism ministry, 5.5 million tourists are expected to visit India in 2008-09 and earn the country Rs 50,000 crore in foreign exchange.
By 2010, ten million foreign tourist arrivals is expected, which industry players say is unrealistic.
Shobu Mathew, vice-president, marketing, The Lalit Hotel says room rates in five-star properties are currently in the range of Rs 6,000-9,000, which could go up to Rs 10,000-12,000, but not to last year's peak season rates of Rs 14,000-18,000 per day.
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