Ahmedabad: Twin cities of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar will need to add 22,000 rooms to the existing infrastructure to host mega-sporting events namely World Police and Fire Games in 2029 and Commonwealth Games (CWG) in 2030.The assessment, titled ‘Enabling Hospitality, Tourism, and Mobility Infrastructure for CWG in Ahmedabad’, was prepared by Harsh Shah, a student of CEPT’s Master’s in Urban Housing (MUH) programme, and guided by faculty members Sejal Patel and Amruta Patel, with TA Vidhi Mehta. It maps existing room inventory and flags the scale of expansion required – Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar have about 18,000 keys, whereas the requirement is of about 40,000 keys, indicate researchers.The study’s room-count analysis estimates that the twin cities currently have 3,694 keys in 22 five-star hotels, 1,557 keys in 24 four-star hotels, 790 keys in 18 resorts, 620 keys in 16 boutique hotels, and around 141 properties listed on Airbnb short-term rental platforms, with the remaining supply in three-star and below categories.“The focus is on the premium segment where the average daily rate (ADR) is Rs 5,000 and above. According to our estimates, the occupancy for 5-star and 4-star hotels along with boutique hotels ranges from 60% to 68%. Even at the conservative estimates, the gap between demand and supply is from 65% for luxury hotels to 60% for budget hotels and 70% for airport hospitality to 90% for MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) venues,” said researchers.Sejal Patel, dean of the Faculty of Management at CEPT University, pointed to how past global sporting events have reshaped hotel capacity in host cities. “Barcelona added about 300% in hotel room capacity in five years in 1992 due to the Olympics. In Doha, about 70,000 new beds were added in four years under the PPP model for the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The idea is to not just add temporary infrastructure but also plan for its future utilization,” she said.“Real estate investment trust (REIT) can be created modelled on Singapore’s hospitality trusts and SEBI can create a ‘sports hospitality REIT’ category that can unlock a major institutional capital in five years,” said Shah. “For Ahmedabad, TDR-plus mechanisms can be applied in some zones as an incentive. Public-private partnership (PPP) can be utilized for creating required hospitality infra.”
