Kolkata: The flight disruptions for the last few days have put hotel industry in a jeopardy at a time which is considered to be a busy season for hospitality sector. There are 41 star category hotels in the city, including 5 star, 4 star and 3 star properties, and all are facing cancellations as well as requests for extension in varying intensity.
President of Hotel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India (HRAEI), Sudesh Poddar, pointed out that the disruption has also largely impacted the occupancy at the hotels. There are cancellations and the impact is more since this is the wedding season. "A lot of guests come from outside the city. On wedding dates like 3rd and 4th, hotels losts a lot of revenue though there was some overstays as well. But cancellation figures were higher," he added.
K Mohanchandran, senior vice president (operations) of Taj Group, noted that there was a fair amount of disruption in last few days following the flight fiasco. "Some bookings got cancelled and some guests overstayed. We allowed booking extension in all the cases," he added. According to him, in smaller hotels like Raajkutir, cancellations are less while for bigger hotels like Taj, the figure is higher because of the scale. However, the cancellation is around 7%-10% of the inventory. Taj group has 694 rooms in its five hotels in the city.
Kamal Raja, GM development of the Lalit Suri Hospitality Group, pointed out that at Lalit Great Eastern, cancellations started since Dec 4. The cancellation now is around 10% for them while overstay is 4-5%. "We were overbooked. So, in a way, cancellation is also helping in inventory management and we could allot room in case of over-staying," he added.
Amitabh sharma, GM, Peerless hotel Kolkata added that since 4th afternoon , they are receiving cancellation requests for dates up to 12th-13th. "However it is not a very alarming volume of cancellation like we had seen during ‘Operation Sindoor'. Till now, a very small percentage of bookings has been cancelled," he added.
Rajesh Ishai, GM of Sonet Hotel — a four star boutique hotel — said that in last few days a lot of cancellation happened. "There was overstay as well. Three of our guests, who had to go to Bangalore, overstayed. We arranged one room for them," he added.