| Representatives from both crossed swords at a recent interaction in the presence of tourism minister Jagmohan with tour operators alleging that hotels had jacked up room rents over 100 per cent this winter in the wake of the huge tourist inflow. |
| According to industry estimates, tourist inflow witnessed a 15 per cent jump over last winter t0 approximately 3 million travellers - putting pressure on the hotel infrastructure in both Delhi and Mumbai. |
| Most of these travellers had been booked into 5-star hotels by tour operators well ahead of peak winter at discounted room rents. Tour operators alleged at the meeting that when the tourists arrived, the hotels increased the rates as much as 100 per cent. |
| "A bulk of the tourists arrive in Delhi and then make their way to destinations like Agra or Jaipur. There is not enough capacity in terms of physical infrastructure like hotels in Delhi to take care of the peak season inflow of tourists," a tour operator said. |
| According to another tour operator, in Delhi there are no alternatives to the 5-star hotels in the form of budget hotels. He added that this encouraged the existing hotels to jack up their room rents during the peak season. |
| Hoteliers substantiated the higher rates by saying they were forced to do it during the peak season to compensate for the low occupancy during lean season such as the summer months. |
| "There is a great need to have budget hotels, which can fill the gap between 5-star and junk hotels. Since there was no option but to check tourists into a 5-star hotel upon arrival, we had to put up with the hiked room rents," a tour operator said. A bulk of the tourists this year is from European countries. |
| The Indian tour operators have arrangements with their foreign counterparts and take care of the tourists' stay once they are India. |
| The outbound traffic this winter season has also been at a record high at around 4.5 million, according to an industry estimate. |
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