Microtel Inns plans 4 hotels in city

Microtel Inns and Suites, US-based focussed service hotel group, is to open its first hotel in the country in Bangalore.

The hotel is coming up in Whitefield and will be operational by April 2006, said Dibyendu Banerjea, chief operating officer, Microtel Inns & Suites.

In Bangalore itself, Microtel plans to open three more hotels in addition to the Whitefield project and in two years be a 450-room hotel group, he added.

For an aggressive foray into India, Microtel Inns and Suites has chosen ABS Hotels as the master franchiser and is targetting B class towns and cities in addition to a few metros. It plans to be a serious player with 80 properties under management contract in five years.

ABS Hotels, Microtel have set eyes on small business cities like Durgapur, Asansol, Haldia, Rajarhat (adjoining Kolkata) in the east, Jaipur, Udaipur, Bhopal, a few towns in Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh in the north, Indore, and Pune, Kolhapur, Nasik and Thane in the west.

ABS Hotels is headed by Amrish Bhuvania and has plans to invest in the region of Rs 10 crore to Rs 15 crore per property.

Microtel will not be investing but purely manage properties for investors.

Focussed entirely on service, with fixed marketable ARRs, hotel rooms will priced around $35 to $45 with single bedroom area of around 200 square feet, double bedroom 250 square feet and each suites of 350 square feet.

"With Microtel's expertise in managing hotels and cost control measures, we expect to break even in three and a half to four years and give investors returns in the range of 12-18 per cent as compared to industry average of 7-10 per cent," said Banerjea.