Pune Luxury Hotels: Too Many Rooms Lead To Discounted Pricesv

The last three years have seen hectic activity on the luxury hotel front in Pune, with several premium Indian and global brands opening up properties. The latest entrant in this space being The Westin from the Starwood Group.
The number of rooms in this segment, at around 1,500, has nearly trebled during this period, involving an estimated expenditure of Rs 3,000 crore. There are several more properties in various stages of construction, including a Hyatt due to open this month. In the next 2-3 years, another 2,000 five-star rooms are expected to hit the market.
For a city that primarily caters to the business traveller, and holds little potential for leisure tourism, industry observers aver that there are just too many rooms to make good business sense.
The recent slowdown has impacted the industry to such an extent that luxury rooms are on offer for 35-50 per cent of the rack rate, and can come for a package that could be as low as Rs 3,000 for a day, with breakfast thrown in.
As the situation stands today, room occupancy is at a low of 50-55 per cent and the discounted prices have led to poor recoveries.
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