Area development norms may be eased for upcoming hotels in India

Keeping in view the spiralling real estate prices across the country, the government plans to ease minimum area development norms for upcoming hotel properties. The proposed guidelines of the Ministry of Tourism, Govt of India stipulating new classification norms for star-rating of hotels, the minimum size of the room for a hotel to be rated as five-star is likely to be reduced from 200 to 175 square feet. Same set of norms would be introduced for the lower star categories of hotels, as per a report by The Financial Times.

Owing to the limited Floor Space Index (FSI) that hotels have in metros, the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India (FHRAI) has suggested that the room size and, consequentially, the size of bathrooms should be reduced in the guidelines for the star rating. From existing 120 square feet (excluding bathroom) for one and two-star category hotels, it should be reduced to 80 square feet. Whereas for three-star, it has suggested reduction from 140 to 100 square feet and, for four-star, from 140 to 120square feet.

According to FHRAI, keeping in view the shortage of land and high cost of real estate in metro cities, the classification guidelines should be tweaked. “Also the duration of travellers stay in metro cities is shorter; therefore big rooms are not required. If the room size is reduced, hoteliers can build more number of rooms in the same land area and offer competitive tariffs. There are some other minor obsolete requirements too, which should be changed in the guidelines,” said Kamlesh Barot, President, FHRAI. FSI in India varies from one state to another. For instance in Delhi hotels are allowed FSI of 2.25 that was increased from 1.5 in 2008, in the wake of Commonwealth games and need for more rooms to accommodate visitors to India.

Source:www.travelbizmonitor.com