Jaipur: Pink City’s hotel market is entering another expansion cycle, with more than 40 large properties planned in and around the city as global and domestic chains move to capture the growing destination wedding business.About 20 of the proposed hotels are planned along the Jaipur-Delhi highway, which has emerged as a major hospitality corridor because of its connectivity and availability of large land parcels.“Around 40 big hotels are coming up in and around Jaipur and they are at various stages of development. Most of these properties will be operational in about five years, while at least five are expected to start operations within a year,” said Surendra Singh Shahpura, president, Federation of Hospitality and Tourism of Rajasthan (FHTR), on the sidelines of Rajasthan Domestic Travel Mart Saturday.The pipeline includes projects such as Grand Hyatt, Ozone Villas, Radisson Blu, JW Marriott, Sofitel Legend and Waldorf Astoria. Each of the large projects entails investments of more than Rs 300 crore.“There is hardly any other industry investing such large amounts of capital in individual projects. These hotels will be key to creating thousands of employment opportunities,” said Ranvijay Singh, a leading member of FHTR.The investment pipeline comes as Jaipur consolidates its position as Rajasthan’s leading destination wedding hub.Hotel operators are increasingly designing large properties with banquet facilities, lawns and other event infrastructure to cater to weddings, which can generate significantly higher room and food-and-beverage revenues than regular business travel.The expansion is expected to substantially increase the branded room inventory in Jaipur and intensify competition among hotel operators.Adding to the development pipeline, RIICO is currently auctioning seven large plots that could further raise the number of projects.Singh said the development is not Jaipur-specific. “Our industry bodies in Pushkar, Udaipur and Jodhpur tell us of similar stories of new project developments happening in those destinations,” added Singh.
