Full service business and leisure hotels chain Lemon Tree has ambitious expansion plans to build 1,700 hotel rooms in 12 major Indian cities over the next four years involving an investment of about Rs 1,000 crore.Patu Keswani, chairman and managing director, Krizm Hotels, which runs the Lemon Tree chain, told media persons today that all the hotels will be in the 'upscale' category immediately below the five star hotels.Lemon Tree today launced its first property in Pune's Rajiv Gandhi Software Park, Hinjawdi. The 124-room property is expected to cater to the needs of the information technology majors such as Wipro, Infosys or KPIT Cummins situated in the IT park as well as a host of manufacturing companies in the vicinity. The property has been build with an investment of Rs 27 crore, Keswani said.Lemon Tree will create a niche for itself by offering 'almost everything' that a five star offers, but at 50-60% of the tariffs, Keswani said. This, he said, was possible mainly due to cost savings on common area per room (lobbies, foyer and the like) as Lemon Tree offers comparatively lesser common area.Keswani said another property is being planned in Pune jointly with Pune-based Panchsheel Realty. This will be a 200-room hotel near the railway station and will be completed by 2009.Keswani said the investors in Krizm Hotels will also develop a budget hotel chain called Red Fox, which will build a property each in Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Delhi. The four properties will together have 540 rooms.
