Boom Or Glut? A Bangalore Paradox

Bangalore suddenly finds itself in an unenviable position in the matter of hotel room availability.  There was a time when the IT industry was booming in the Garden City, it was felt that hotel accommodation was awfully scarce and was unable to meet the demand generated by the spread of IT business in the city.

Bhanu Prakash Eradettin
vyomkesh83@gmail.com

This challenge was picked up by the hotel chains and other investors who made a beeline to Bangalore to set up new hotels.  The result is the instant explosion of hotel rooms.  More than a dozen star hotels have now set up shop and are offering nearly 2500 additional rooms.  This is in addition to the nearly 5000 rooms offered by the existing 22 hotels.

The present caravan is led by Taj Hotels,  Star wood Hotels & Resorts ( Sheraton) Lemon Tree Hotels & Monenpich Hotels & Resorts.

Taj Group already had four hotels and the latest to join the group is Vivanta by Taj with 327 rooms at the crowded Yeshwantpur conglomerate. The jewel in the Yeshwantpur crown however is the latest Sheraton whose property in the Brigade complex is cynosure of all  eyes.

The new entrants who are open for business are as under

Hotel	Company	Location	No of Rooms
Vivanta by Taj Yeshwantpur	Taj Hotels, Resorts & Palaces	Yeshwantpur	327
Lemon Tree, City centre, Bangaluru	Lemon Tree Hotels	St John’s Road	187
Movenpick Hotel & Spa	Movenpick Hotels & Resorts	Gokula Extention	182
Sheraton Bangalore Hotel  at Brigade Gateway	Starwood Hotels & Resorts	Malleswaram	230
Park plaza Bangalore	International Carlson worldwide and sarovar Hotels & Resorts	Sarjapur – Marathalli Outer ring Road	234
Alila Bangalore	UKn Properties	Whitefield	120
24 Tech Hotel	Prestige Group	Sarjapur – Marathahalli Outer Ring Road	24
Ibis Bengaluru Techpark & Novotel Bengaluru Techpark	Accor Hotels	Sarjapur Outer Ring Road	Jointly 547
Ibis Bengaluru	Accor Hotels	Hosur Road	185

Good Location

One interesting new trend is that unlike in the past, when hotels were at the city centre, a large number of new hotels are coming up where their clients are based.  Sarjapur outer Ring Road, Marathalli, Whitefild, Hosur Road, Electronic City and peenya are the new destinations for these hotels ( See table).  There are three main reasons behind this: Availability of land, lower land price outside the central business district (CBD) and huge catchment areas for customers, thanks to IT parks scattered outside the CBD.