Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai)

Hotels struggle with 40% occupancy

- Naresh Kamath

MUMBAI: Six months after hotels in Mumbai were allowed to reopen, most of them are still struggling to stay afloat as they are running at only around 40% occupancy. The reason — negligible internatio­nal tourists, meagre interstate travellers as well as lack of corporate clients.

This is according to the figures released by Hvs-anarock, a hospitalit­y consulting firm. “There are hardly any internatio­nal tourists. Currently, the occupants consist of tourists on short vacations within motorable distances and short flight distances from their home town,” said Mandeep Lamba, president (South Asia), Hvs-anarock.

According to experts, a hotel needs to have at least 50% occupancy to sustain itself. After being shut for more than four months, the state allowed hotels to reopen from July 8, 2020.

The Hotel and Restaurant Associatio­n of Western India (HRAWI), an apex body of hoteliers, said that hotels are running into huge losses due to lack of occupancy. “Many hotels have cut their tariffs to one third to woo consumers. In addition, many have not even opened their establishm­ents as the losses are too heavy to bear,” said Dilip Datwani, spokespers­on, HRAWI. “Since even outstation trains are not travelling at full capacity, we have lost those patrons also,” he added.

Radisson Blu Mumbai Internatio­nal Airport Hotel has currently opened 96 rooms for their patrons. “We see full booking during the weekends but the response during weekdays is not very encouragin­g,” said Pankaj Saxena, general manager, Radisson Blu Mumbai Internatio­nal Airport Hotel.

Kamlesh Barot, who manages Empresa Hotel at Andheri, listed a variety of reasons for the low occupancy. “Though the Central government has asked for easing restrictio­ns at the airport, the situation is very chaotic. Tourists from other states are afraid they will be tested and forced to quarantine, thus spoiling their vacations,” said Barot.

Lamba pointed out that despite poor business, the situation in India is better than in other countries. “There are hardly any hotel occupancie­s in other countries as they were not able to control the spread of Covid-19 as we did. Things will improve as the vaccine rolls out,” he said.

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