BY ONE ESTIMATE, THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES WILL DRAW AROUND 11AKH VISITORS. WHERE WILL THEY ALL STAY? DELHI SIMPLY DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH HOTELS, AND THE NEW ONES ARE NOT COMING UP FAST ENOUGH MAKE ROOM, AND FAST

Is Delhi geared up to host the roughly 1 lakh tourists, who will arrive to witness the Commonwealth Games due in October 2010?

The numbers say "no".

The Union Tourism Ministry has projected a demand for 30,000 hotel rooms during the Games. But this requirement is unlikely to be met in time.

Delhi Development Authority (DDA), - which was tasked with auctioning land for constructing hotels - auctioned 33 plots for developing star and budget category hotels in the last three years.

If built on time, these hotels would have added around 6,000 rooms, but, DDA now admits that only 50 percent of this capacity will be added in time.

The slow pace of work, made worse by the recent economic slowdown, has set alarm bells ringing in the government. The ministry of Tourism has stepped in with alternative arrangement like the bed and breakfast scheme to tide over the shortfall.

The Ministry has also engaged India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) to help DDA Convert over 3,000 upcoming flats in Jasola and Vasuant Kunj into service/studio apartments for the Games.

This will add approximately 5,000 rooms. We hope to get them ready by March 2010," said Rajiv Makin, Director (Commercial & Marketing), ITDC.

Ambika Soni, Union Minister of Tourism, said, "Another 5,500 rooms are also expected to be ready by next year in the NCR towns like Gurgaon."

But why did DDA's projects falter? Experts blame the exorbitant prices at which plots were auctioned, bad location and DDA's failure to develop the area before auctioning the plots.

Ideally, hoteliers say, the land cost should not be more than 25-35 per cent of the overall development cost of a hotel. But in Delhi, in case of some of the sites, the land cost alone constitutes 60 per cent of the total cost.

"At such a high land cost, developing a mid-scale hotel would be a challenge. Good hotel operators won't run a budget hotel at that cost," said Rajindra Kumar, President, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Northern India.

Under these circumstances, hoteliers say, alternatives like the "Bed and Breakfast" scheme offer a ray of hope.

Courtesy: - HT dtd:- 20-02-09