New hotel room addition at tourist spots in slow lane

While the state government is aiming to see a 20% growth in tourists visiting Gujarat in 2013-14, growth of the number of hotel rooms at popular tourist locations is unlikely to keep pace with tourist inflow growth. Several tour operators in the state say that in the last few years, while there has been a significant rise in interest in Gujarat tourism thanks to the popular campaign Khushboo Gujarat Ki, addition of quality hotel rooms at tourist spots has been slow.

In the longrun, such logistical issues can de-rail the Gujarat government's ambitious plans for tourism growth, say operators. Data from the tourism ministry website shows that from January 2010 to December 2013, around 35 new hotel projects including even bed-and-breakfast inns, totalling around 2,300 rooms have been approved in Gujarat. In comparison, 296 hotel projects have been approved in Kerala, 130 in Maharashtra, 90 in Tamil Nadu, 68 in Uttar Pradesh during the same period.

S Maheswari of Height & Sight Holidays based in Bhuj said, "In the last few years, there has not been many quality hotel rooms added in tourist locations across the state. Major additions have been in cities like Ahmedabad, Vadodara which get business travellers." For that matter, Ahmedabad had seen a huge jump in hotel rooms from 519 rooms in 2006-07 to around 1,975 rooms in 2012.

Another operator, Sharvil Patel who runsAltius Travels, an Ahmedabad-based travel agency and is also a member of the Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI)says that while the Saurashtra region has witnessed a decent growth in the number of hotel rooms in the recent past, in Kutch, however, the process is slow.

Data from theGovernment Information Technology Committee (GITCO)shows that in between April 2011 and April 2013, while cities like Ahmedabad have seen an addition of 2,890 rooms, tourist places like Dwarka have seen an addition of only 26 rooms, Ambaji has seen none, Palitana has actually seen a decline of 25 rooms, Girnar and Somnath have also not seen any room additions. In comparison, 365 rooms have been added at Vadodara, 353 in Surat and 284 rooms in Gandhidham. Even Mehsana and Anand have seen 106 and 137 rooms added respectively during the period as these are close to industrial and commercial centers. Tourist spots like Mandvi (20 rooms), Porbandar(nil), Patan (nil) and Pavagadh (nil) have not seen many hotel rooms getting added to accommodate tourists.

M Vakharia, head of Gujarat chapter of the Outbound Tour Operators of India (OTOI) too admitted that there were logistical issues that could impact the growth of Gujarat tourism in the long run, like long road routes to reach destinations, not many quality rooms at tourist spots. "Infrastructure issues could eventually bring down the number of repeat visitors," he said.

On its part, the state tourism department, is working to improve infrastructure. Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) has almost completed the upgradation of the Toran Hotels, with an investment of around Rs 15 crore. Sanjay Kaul, managing director, TCGL said, "We have almost finished the upgradation work of the Toran hotels across the state, a project we had taken up around a year back." He, however, also added that the state government has taken a decision that it would not invest in building hotels and would encourage private investors to set up hotels in Gujarat. "Number of enquiries for putting up new hotel projects has definitely increased in the last few years," he said.

Gujarat had seen a 13.6% growth in the number of tourists visiting Gujarat last year, which was around 25 million.

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New hotel room addition at tourist spots in slow lane