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Bharat Hotels To Set Up Tourism Township In Jaipur
To Partner Public-Private Venture For Jaipur Convention
Centre
Bhisham Mansukhani - Mumbai
The Bharat Hotels-owned Grand Group is set to build a tourism
township on a 125 acre plot, it has acquired on the Jaipur Ajmer highway. Besides
a hotel under the Grand Group brand, the company will build a full-fledged complex
of service apartments, shopping malls and theatres. Bharat Hotels chairman and
managing director Lalit Suri said that if the concept worked well, the company
would consider the same scale of development in all of the state's 30 districts.
"There is also a proposal to build a convention centre in Jaipur in a unique
partnership between the central and state government," Suri said. As part
of its biggest expansion to date, the company will invest Rs 1,000 crore in
new hotels across India and an unspecified investment towards international
metros. The Grand Group's Indian expansions include a slew of airport hotels
in Bangalore, its second in the city aside from the Ashoka, Amristsar, Ahmedabad,
Hyderabad, Chennai and Jaipur as well as a resort in Bekal, Kerala. Surat and
Noida are also part of the group's thrust to increase its current hotel count
to 15, up from seven before the turn of the decade.
Significantly, most of the hotels planned are in proximity to the respective
city's airport. "We recently finalised a plot near the new airport in Bangalore.
It is the ideal location for our second Bangalore hotel. With an eye on the
future, this is a good move. Airport hotels are the way forward. The cities
are overpopulated. Land costs are high and a lot of the business travellers
do not go into the cities. Following these expansions, we will look keenly at
budget hotels. The land has to be available at a very reasonable price. Amritsar
has an international airport and no five star hotel anywhere near it. The hotel
in Ahmedabad will also be located near the airport," Suri said.
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