Part of the USD 62 billion Tata Group, Roots Corporation Limited, which owns the 'Ginger' brand of budget hotels plans to invest around Rs 100 crore in Gujarat over the next five years. The company is riding on the growing opportunities for budget hotels amidst current slowdown.
"Gujarat has a lot of business travel happening in cities like Ahmedabad and Vadodara. Contrary to common perception, corporates don't stop travel completely but cut down on cost and go for budget hotels. In such a scenario, our Ginger hotels have huge scope and therefore we plan to widen its reach in Gujarat," said Prabhat Pani, chief executive officer of Roots Corporation Limited. According to Pani, the company will be investing between Rs 10 crore and Rs 15 crore on an average on a Ginger hotel and plans to have such 10 hotels in Gujarat in the next five years.
In its efforts to gain first-mover's advantage in the organised budget hotels market, Roots Corporation Limited is planning more such Ginger hotels in cities like Surat, Rajkot and Jamnagar.
Having launched 16th hotel of the company in Ahmedabad and plans to add three more by the end of the financial year 2008-09. "We plan to take the total number of hotels to 30 by 2010. The idea to increase our footprint as much as possible by 2010 as several events including Commonwealth Games will be taking place in the country," said Pani. The cumulative investment on hotels by the company so far has been of around Rs 300 crore.
With an average size of 100 rooms per hotel, Ginger hotels carry 3-star category and offers competitive rates of Rs 1,000-2,300 per room. "We offer much better prices than our contemporaries like Hometel, Ibis and Lemon Tree," added Pani.
