Saraf Hotels to almost double rooms to 5,000 in 4 years

Saraf Hotel Enterprises, which owns several Hyatt properties across the country, plans to almost double its room inventory from 2,700 currently to about 5,000 in the next four to five years. The group is in the process of investing Rs 2,500 crore to set up properties in Aerocity Delhi, Lucknow, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar.

Arun K Saraf, managing director of Juniper Hotels Pvt Ltd and also Asian Hotels (East) Ltd, part of Saraf Hotel Enterprises said the Lucknow property will be operational by March 2017, while the Aerocity Delhi property (a 1000-room project) would be operational by March 2016.

"We are basically a hotel development and owning company, while Hyatt is the brand and management company for most of our hotels," Saraf said, adding that the group had started in 1975, with its first property Yak and Yeti Hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal, coming up in 1977.

The group had also won the bid for developing hotels at Somnath, Dwarka, Rajkot and Bharuch under a public-private-partnership (PPP) project in 2013. These projects will be developed along with Gujarat Tourism Opportunity Limited (GUJTOP), a joint venture between Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) and Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services Limited (IL&FS). While the group will build the property, the land will be provided by the state government.

"These properties could be 3-star mid-market properties of Hyatt, under the brand Hyatt Place," Saraf said. 

Juniper Hotels recently also launched its luxury business hotel Hyatt Regency in Ahmedabad, a 210-room property with an investment of about Rs 340 crore.