HHI to set up boutique hotels

Kolkata-based HHI (Hotel Hindusthan International) Group of Hotels plans to invest Rs 450-500 crore for setting up eight to ten four-star boutique hotels in different locations across the country by the end of 2010.

Each of these hotels will have 100-150 rooms and they are likely to be developed in locations like Nagpur, Nashik, Gangtok, Jaipur, Siliguri and Dehradun.

"At present, we are scouting for land in locations like Nagpur, Nashik, Gangtok, Jaipur, Siliguri and Dehradun. Our objective is to develop four-star hotel properties in these locations", Vishvjeet Singh, the deputy general manager of the HHI Group of Hotels told Business Standard.

Singh said that out of the total investment of Rs 450-500 crore, the HHI group would initially put in Rs 100-150 crore on project development of these hotels which includes the cost to be incurred on land acquisition.

Meanwhile, the HHI Group has already taken possession of land and received the environmental clearance for its proposed four-star boutique property in Goa.

Construction work for the proposed four-star boutique hotel in Goa is scheduled to take off in a month and the hotel is expected to be operational within eighteen months.

The four-star boutique hotel in Goa would comprise 165 rooms and it is being developed at an investment of over Rs 100 crore, excluding the cost of land acquisition.

Another four-star boutique hotel of the HHI Group is also expected to be functional within six months.

HHI Group presently owns a 184 room five-star hotel in Kolkata, a 98-room five-star hotel in Varanasi and another four-star boutique property in Bhubaneswar.