Sahara Hospitality to build 1,000 rooms

Sahara Hospitality, which runs five-star luxury establishment Hotel Sahara Star plans to build over 1,000 rooms over the next three years and is at present in advanced talks with various entities for securing loans.

The Sahara Group company will open seven properties across India by end-2012, some of which may be greenfield projects while others would be acquisitions of existing hotels, Hotel Sahara Star CEO and Group Deputy Director Worker Vivek Kumar said today.

"We have very ambitious plans for expansion. Our aspirational target is to build at least 1,000 rooms in the next three-years. Our rooms (inventories) will go up by 250 per cent," he told reporters here.

The two-and-a-half-year-old Hotel Sahara Star, the only luxury establishment owned by Sahara Hospitality, currently has an inventory of 223 rooms.

Kumar said the company is "in advanced stages of negotiations" with bankers as well as land-owners for buying properties.

"We plan to open seven properties in places like Goa, Bangalore, Mysore, Shimla and in Gujarat. These could be a mix of premium and non-premium hotels," Kumar said.

"Before March 31, 2010, we will have definitely acquire land and existing hotels for brownfield expansion. This would be funded through a debt-equity ratio of 2:1," he said, but declined to divulge the amount of investment envisaged.

The company is also looking to enter the European hospitality industry, Kumar added.

He said Sahara Hospitality may look at a listing when it has a sizeable reach or an inventory of 600-700 rooms.

Hotel Sahara Star today announced its promotional partnership with Singapore-based World Hotels, an exclusive group of unique and independent hotels from across the world.