Siyaram group setting up 5 budget hotels

Rajasthan-based Siyaram Group, one of the leading names in textiles and tourism, is going to launch "Pink Pepper", a moving restaurant, and has also unveiled a plan to set up an "international standard budget hotel chain" in Rajasthan.

Group Managing Director Satish Katta, in a press conference, held here said Pink Pepper had been made on a double-decker bus, with a roofless upper deck. This restaurant would be equipped with all modern facilities. Tourists can go for sight-seeing on pre-determined routes.

Sneha Katta, project director of Pink Pepper, said on this restaurant there would be 36 dinning chairs, 18 on the lower deck and 18 on the upper deck. The lower deck is air-conditioned, while the upper deck is open air.

Sunita Shekhawat, executive director, Siyaram City Cabs Ltd, said the group was setting up a hotel at Jagatpura in Jaipur, with an investment of Rs 20 crore.

This would be the first in a series of five budget hotels being put up in collaboration with "Microtel", a US-based budget hotel chain. Other hotels would come up at Jodhpur, Udaipur, Jaiselmer and Barmer, she said.

Each hotel would have 100 rooms or more, well-equipped with all latest amenities, but prices would be pegged at around USD 50, she pointed out.

Satish Katta said the "positive effect" of the latest visit of Chief Minister Vashundhra Raje to the US and "single window clearance" envisaged under the latest tourism policy have made possible inception of this project in such a small time and now many foreign companies are willing to bring such new projects in Rajasthan.

Pankaj Arora, group marketing director, said that this hotel project would fill a crucial missing link in the group's business plans in the field of tourism.

He said that tour operation, tourist transportation and hotelare three major components of the tourism industry. The group was already well entrenched in "tour operations".