This December, hotels in Chennai report low occupancy rate

Hotels in the city that are usually heavily booked as music lovers from as far as the US throng the sabhas for the year-end music festival, are now running low on occupancy this year. The recent heavy rains and floods which sparked fear of contamination has made many of the NRIs and foreigners to cancel bookings at the last hour.

V Babu, General Manager, New Woodlands Hotel in Mylapore, which is a stone’s throw away from Music Academy and Narada Gana Sabha, two major hubs of activity during the festival season, said almost 50 per cent of the bookings have been cancelled this year.

“From December 13 to 30, we usually have full house as many people from overseas come just for the Margazhi music festival. But, this time, because of the floods, almost half our reservations have been cancelled,” he said.

Most of the cancellations are from the non-resident Indians and foreigners in the US and Europe. Despite the hotels’ efforts to reassure them, the numbers have not increased. “This is a huge loss for us,” Babu said.

Residency Towers, in T Nagar, which was closed for maintenance post flood, resumed operations on December 16. Its current hotel occupancy rate is 60 per cent. According to the company spokesperson, most of the overseas reservations got cancelled on the grounds of possible water contamination. “We got only limited bookings as the hotel was closed. But even that got cancelled,” the spokesperson said.

The number of people who avail themselves of the Margazhi packages arranged by the Taj group of hotels has also come down. “We usually arrange for 20 Margazhi packages for the residents every year. But, this time, it was only around 5,” says a company official.

Though the hotels are facing a lean patch, home stays and service apartments are doing better. Star City Service Apartments currently has 80 per cent occupancy. Rajalakshmi, Sales Manager, said though the floods had affected their overall business, it did not have much impact on the demand for service apartments, especially for long term.

M Ashok, who runs homestays in RA Puram, said the occupancy is 75 per cent compared to 90 per cent last year. “There had been some cancellations and since the houses in the ground floor were affected, we were unable to confirm new bookings,” he said.