Oriental Hotels to beef up its room strength

City-based Oriental Hotels is planning to open two more hotels and add more rooms at its existing properties to take the total number of hotels and rooms under its fold to 10 and 1,250 respectively by 2012.

In addition, the company plans to build a new hotel at Sriperumbuder, around 50 km here, and put to use its land banks in Mysore, Kochi, Conoor.

'We have spent around Rs.178 crore in renovation and expansion of existing properties like Taj Coromadel, Taj Fisherman's Cove. Another Rs.160 crore will be spent over the next two years,' N.Prakash, director (operations), told reporters here Tuesday.

Currently, the Rs.194 crore revenue hospitality company has eight properties under its fold with 870 rooms.

The new hotels that will come up next year are 180 room Taj Suriya in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and a 200 room hotel in Bangalore under the Gateway brand.

All the hotels of Oriental Hotels are managed by The Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) under its various brands. IHCL holds around 18 percent in the Rs.17.85 crore equity of Oriental Hotels.

Meanwhile, for the first quarter of the current fiscal Oriental Hotels has posted a total income of Rs.48 crore and a net profit of Rs.1.68 crore as against Rs.36 crore and Rs.58 lakhs earned during the corresponding period of the previous year.

While room rents contributed 60 percent of the top line the balance was from food and beverage.

'Going forward Oriental Hotels will focus on growing and expanding its business in critical markets across India. Our proposed properties in Coimbatore and Bangalore are in that direction. We will unlock our land bank in opportune time,' Managing Director D.Varada Reddy said.

According to IHCL's Executive Director (Finance) Anil P. Goel, the company is investing in hotel properties in the Maldives and Phuket, Thailand.

Citing its Rs.300 crore net worth, Goel said the company will fund its expansion with internal accruals and debt.