Radisson Hotels, with a new 162-room hotel project in Chennai, seems on an expansion drive. The group has also planed the expansion of its existing 100-room property near the airport. The hotel will add another 30 rooms to its existing property before March 2010, on the acquired land near the current structure. This 150 crore rupees deal is being termed as the biggest deal inked in past 12 months. The airport road hotel was started as a joint venture between NKK Hotels and Macnur Hospitality India (in which the MA Chidambaram group had majority shareholding). Later, this was sold to the GRT Group, which is still managing the property.
The new hotel, spread over 1.6 acres on Commander-in-Chief Road in Egmore, will be managed with the help of city based VVT hotels, run by Vikram Aggrawal.
This Radisson property will join the group of other hospitality ventures like ITC, Raintree on Mount Road (Ceebros), Empee-Hilton, JW Mariott, Leela Kempinski, Grand Chola, Grand Hyatt and GRT, which are at different stages of construction. This construction spree will take the number of five-star rooms up by 2500 unit. There are many national and international brands ready to foray into Chennai hospitality market with their various plans.
The upcoming hotel project of Radisson is scheduled to be ready for occupation by December 2010 and will tackle the competition from other players in the hospitality market. The possibility is that the majority of these projects will start functioning in 2010-2011. The 45 Crore VVT Hotels will handle the planned venture as its second hospitality project in the city. The group already operates 129-room Fortune Hotel on Old Mahabalipuram Road. VVT Hotels has shown the sign of entering the Mumbai market soon. The group has signed the deal with Radisson a few months ago. The new hotel would have two coffee shops, two specialty restaurants and a large banquet hall.
