Paucity of hotel rooms dents 'sports capital' tag for Bhubaneswar

Govt reaches out to companies, asks them to accommodate visitors in their guesthouses

Unavailability of adequate hotel rooms is throwing a spanner in the emergence of Bhubaneswar as the sports capital of the country.

Odisha's capital and number one Smart City, Bhubaneswar, has shown promise as a sports hub, by successfully hosting the 22nd Asian Athletics Championship between July 6-9 last year. Preparations for the tournament were done in a record 90 days, drawing rave reviews from the sports fraternity. And in 2017, the city played host to Men's Hockey World League, held between December 1-10, with teams from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain participating.

More recently, Odisha also announced sponsorship of the National hockey teams - both Men and Women for five years. Sources have pegged the total deal size at Rs 1.5 billion, as the state government is set to splurge Rs 300 million each year on the sponsorship.

Taking its penchant for staging mega sports events forward, Bhubaneswar is now making elaborate arrangements to host the Men's Hockey World Cup-2018. The event is scheduled from November 28 to December 16. The state government is the title partner for the event while Odisha Tourism is host partner.

The event is expected to trigger a surge in tourists and hockey aficionados from India and abroad. But this time, there's a problem -- Bhubaneswar is woefully short of hotel rooms to accommodate the inbound visitors.

The state government has already sniffed trouble and is now reaching out to key corporates such as National Aluminium Company (Nalco) and Coal India arm Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) to offset the shortfall by accommodating visitors in their guesthouses. IT companies, management institutes and technical colleges are also being approached to help tide over the crisis.

“Given the crunch in hotel rooms in the city, the state government is approaching various corporates through various departments to bridge the demand-supply mismatch,” said an official privy to the developments.

The state government has scheduled a meeting on March 14 to assess its own preparedness and chalk out a detailed strategy for the purpose.

The state IT and Electronics department recently reached out to IT behemoths Infosys and MindTree, which operate in the city, urging them  to offer their guesthouses for visitors to the world event. 

“The idea of scouting for corporate guesthouses is to match the travel time of the foreign tourist. In other foreign destinations, there is a bread and breakfast concept, in whicj ones pays $40 instead of splurging $100 (on full service). The idea is to allow an economical stay to foreign guests, so we are reaching out to corporates as other low-cost lodging in Bhubaneswar is not up to the mark,” said another official.

Bhubaneswar has more than 600 star-category hotel rooms, but a large chunk of them is expected to be occupied by the competing teams and their officials. Odisha's peak tourist season also sets in towards the end of November and hotels usually have high occupancy rates to accommodate the inbound tourists.

“We have apprised the Odisha government that there is need for 5,000 more rooms for the ensuing Men’s Hockey World Cup. There is no hotel accommodation for the guests, though the players will be accommodated. We are trying our level best to give priority to Hockey by blocking rooms. Since the tournament is being hosted in the peak season, it will also be a major challenge for hoteliers to accommodate tourists who will be visiting the state during the World Cup,” said J K Mohanty , chairman and managing director, Swosti Group of Hotels and Chairman, Hotel & Restaurant Association of Odisha (HRAO).