Chennai, Nov 22 (IANS) The impending closure of 287-room five-star hotel Crowne Plaza Chennai Adyar Park at the heart of the city will benefit a couple of star hotels situated in the nearby localities, said senior industry officials.
The Crowne Plaza Chennai Adyar Park property is owned by Adyar Gate Hotels Ltd and is managed by the global hospitality chain InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).
The hotel will stop accepting guests from December 20 onwards, as the property owners plan to redevelop the land.
As a matter of fact, IHG checked into the Chennai hotel market with its Crowne Plaza brand for the hotel owned by Adyar Gate Hotels.
Prior to that, the property was managed by ITC. It was called Sheraton Park Hotel and Towers.
Adyar Gate Hotels also owns the InterContinental Chennai Mahabalipuram Resort (beach resort) and Fortune Sullivan Hotel in Ooty.
“There are a good number of star hotels near Crowne Plaza and they can easily absorb the additional business following its closure,” Revathi, Director, UGO Hospitality, a hospitality consultancy company, told IANS.
According to her, the Teynampet, Anna Salai, T. Nagar belt — closer to Crowne Plaza — has about 1,500 five-star hotel rooms.
The properties are doing about 75-80 per occupancy and they can easily absorb the additional business that would be coming up with the closure of Crowne Plaza.
“Nearby there are several hotels in the same category and they will benefit,” Yangya Prakash Chandran, Founder and CEO, Crossway Hotels and Resorts, told IANS.
The star hotels that are nearby are Hyatt Regency, Marriott, GRT Grand, Raintree, Novotel, The Leela Palace, Welcomhotel, Savera and others.
“The Chennai hotel market can be classified into four segments – properties located in the Central Business District, OMR, ECR and the Guindy belt,” Ruban Das, General Manager, Hyatt Regency Chennai, told IANS.
And the business is good for the hotels in all the belts. The beach resorts on the East Coast Road (ECR) do booming business during the weekends while the hotels on the parallel stretch the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) are logging moderate growth and impacted by the metro-rail work.
Similarly the hotels in the Central Business District are logging moderate growth, while the properties located in the Guindy belt are the ones logging handsome business growth, a senior industry official told IANS.
“We have come back to the pre-Covid levels. Several new industrial projects are happening and we are getting guests because of that. The corporate travel has come back to normal levels,” said Das, who heads the 325-room nine-floor Hyatt Regency Chennai.
According to Das, refurbishment of the rooms in six floors has been completed and the remaining rooms in the three floors will happen next fiscal.
City hotels are holding food festivals regularly and on its part Hyatt Regency Chennai is now holding the Hakka cuisine, anchored by Chef Katherine Chung.
According to Das, 2023 could be termed as the year of consolidation for the industry in the city as no new property has come up.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
–IANS
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