Budget comfort

HOSPITALITY: ITC's Fortune chain is ready to launch India's first rural hotels initiative even as it pursues a luxury model elsewhere.

Travellers to rural India can now look forward to some decent accommodation. ITC is looking at setting up lodges along with their e-Choupal and Choupal Saagar initiatives.

Branded as Fortune Lodge, these will have 16-25 rooms and will provide good lodging space, be hygienic and will offer a good place to eat, informs Suresh Kumar, president, Fortune Hotels.

These lodges will target budget travellers in a big way and will be located in the outskirts, about 4-5 kilometres from the city. "People who come to source stuff from rural areas can use this budget accommodation effectively," says Kumar.

A Choupal Saagar is a rural hypermarket which provides multiple services under one roof. It creates a platform for farmers to sell their produce and farmers can also buy quality products for their farm and household consumption here.

Over the next 10 years, ITC plans to open over 700 such hypermarkets and to this expansion will be linked the growth of Fortune Lodges. They are already planning at least 10-15 of these and Kumar is optimistic that this number could go up to 30. "It could even be more," he says.

Another initiative which would push their new Fortune Lodge plan is the launch of its e-Choupal Fresh initiative to supply rural produce to new retailers who have hit the Indian domestic market.

Room pricing is one thing Kumar is not sure he can talk about at this stage but he does indicate that it will be lower than their Fortune Inns that they are planning in some of the temple towns (these will charge between Rs 1,200-1,400). We should see the first Lodge come up in the next one year.

As for the location, "It's going to be all over the country for sure with our e-Choupal and Choupal Sagar initiatives but for now we are looking at states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh," says Kumar.

The feel of these properties will be very local. "There will be a native flavour to the properties," he says. Each Fortune Lodge room will cost about Rs 4-6 lakh. According to Siddharth Thaker, associate director, HVS International, it costs Rs 10-12 lakh a key (excluding the cost of land) for a typical budget hotel room.

Fortune already has five different brands under the Fortune Hotels umbrella "" Fortune Select, Fortune Park, Fortune Resorts, Fortune Inn and Fortune Residences, and Fortune Lodge will be at the bottom of the pyramid.

The funding for these properties, says Kumar, will come from the Rs 5,000 crore that ITC has earmarked to spend on its hotels division over the next five years.