East India Hotels to ramp up capacity by about 60 per cent
By Our Corporate Bureau | 29 Aug 2007
Kolkata: East India Hotels (EIH), the Oberoi Group's flagship, is planning to boost capacity by 60 per cent, up from the existing 4,100 rooms to 6,800 across its hotels in India as well as overseas.
It is estimated that the company will require an infusion of up to Rs 4,500 crore to accomplish this capacity expansion. About Rs 1,000 crore of this investment will come from EIH, with the balance coming from borrowings and partner agreements, whose hotels The Oberoi will manage.
The remaining 1,400-odd rooms will come under the Oberoi banner through overseas projects in Dubai, Maldives and Angkor Vat in Cambodia.
Sources say that the company has already signed Memoranda of Understanding to manage hotels in seven other destinations, including two hotels in Abu Dhabi, one in Oman, one at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt, one in Marrakesh in Morocco and one each at Paro and Thimpu in Bhutan.
Two 30-room properties have been planned for Bhutan. The company expects a relatively low occupancy rate of about 45 per cent, and plans to provide the room rate advantage, which commands $800-$900 a day in the mountain kingdom of Bhutan.
New hotels, one each in Pune and in Kolkata, are also reportedly on the anvil under EIH's Trident brand. The company is seeking prospective sites in both cities.