IHCL plans five Ginger hotels in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: In a bid to cater to the fast-growing hospitality industry in Gujarat, Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) is planning at least five hotels under its ‘Ginger’ brand in Gujarat in the immediate future.

Later, the company would go for six more in the state. The company has just extended its presence to Gujarat through the setting up of a hotel at Vadodara, which is its 11th in the country.

The company has a presence in Bangalore, Pune, Haridwar, Bhubaneswar, Mysore, Thiruvananthapuram, Durgapur, Nasik, Agartala and Puducherry, which have been built in the last 18 months or so.

With a high occupancy rate for its budget and high-end hotels, the company is seeing Gujarat as an attractive state. The Vadodara hotel will have around 95 rooms as well as a conference room facility, which can host conferences for up to 40 guests.

After Vadodara, the company is planning to set up at least two hotels in Ahmedabad, one at Drive-in road and the other could be at Satellite area. It is also looking at a hotel each in Rajkot and Surat in the coming few months.

In the second phase, after its preliminary studies are completed, the company is planning to set up a hotel each at Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Vapi, Gandhinagar and Ambaji.

“We will have invested around Rs 220 crore by March 2008 and will commit close to Rs 60-80 crore at the time for our further expansion,” said Prabhat Pani, chief executive officer and director, Roots Corporation Limited, which is a subsidiary of IHCL.

Usually, a hotel is built at a cost of Rs 13-15 crore excluding the land.

Other than the locations in Gujarat, the company has said that it would also start working on hotels in Tirupur, Jamshedpur and Paradip, among other destinations within the next two months.

These locations have been identified after detailed studies across various parameters such as potential of the market, clusters of clientele and peak periods among others.