Hampshire to invest Rs 5000cr in India

US-based hotel chain Hampshire Hotels and Resorts LLC, which has chalked out plans to develop 25 hotels at an investment of Rs 5,000 crore in 21 cities in India, formally opened its first business hotel in Hyderabad on Thursday.

The hundred-room hotel is the first of three hotels planned in Hyderabad at a total investment of Rs 500 crore by the company.

This would be followed by two hotels each in Kochi, Chennai and Bangalore in the south besides bigger hotels with convention hall facilities in cities like Mumbai and New Delhi among other central, western and northern Indian cities in four years.

Sharing his plans for India till 2011, Sant Singh Chatwal, chairman and chief executive officer of Hampshire Hotels and Resorts LLC, said plans for ten hotels have already been firmed up and the rest would be finalised in a year. Chatwal would bring in 50 per cent of the Rs 2,000-crore equity on his own while the remaining would come from the company's institutional partners from the US at a later date. The hotel chain will raise 60 per cent of the total investment by way of debt.

"Today my dream has come true. I wanted to come back home to India 25 years ago," he said, adding he was happy to start his first Indian hotel in Hyderabad.

The company would foray into the Indian hospitality sector in three categories "� business hotels, boutique hotels and hotels with convention hall facilities, which can house anywhere between 1,300 and 5,000 people. The hotels will have a total capacity of 5,000 rooms.

Kochi will have a boutique hotel with a 1,300-capacity convention hall while Mumbai and Delhi will have hotels with bigger convention halls. Of the total hotels, 10-12 would be business hotels with 4-plus star status, he said.

Besides the present facility, a boutique hotel is planned in the upmarket Banjara Hills and another, with a Rs 200-crore investment, near the new international airport in the city.