Will Mumbai / Indian hotel room rates drop after terror attacks?
Has anyone experienced dramatic cutting of hotel room rates in Mumbai, or other Indian cities and resort destinations in the wake of the early December terror attacks in Colaba?
I imagine that there have been widespread cancellations, particularly of group and package holiday bookings, and am aware that virtually every travel security warning service is currently warning against travel to India at the moment.
As anyone who travels to India knows, 5 star hotels in Mumbai and New Delhi are extremely expensive, and I am wondering what sort of aggressive marketing and pricing campaigns will be put in place to attract visitors back to the major cities, and Indian resorts.
There must be huge concerns about how the fall out of the terror attacks in Mumbai will affect the promotional run up to the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
Should I be bargaining hard for a room?
Also, going on your past experience, how quickly will major hotel chains reduce the amount of hotel points required to stay in Indian hotels experiencing low room occupancies?
Moderator: Flying Blue (Air France & KLM), France and TravelBuzz!
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Paris, France, AF F+ Rouge pour toujours, Flying Blue whatever, LH nobody, HHonors Diamond, SPG Plat, formerly proud SCC Executive, now IC Royal Ambassador, hungry BA Gold in CE
Posts: 7,370
Please continue the discussion in the India forum. Thanks for your understanding.
I was shopping for rates expecting to see substantial discounts for mid December, but was disappointed. Not much of a discount, if any. But if you find any for 5 star hotels, i am all ears!
I agree as I would expect to see a discount from a lot of cancellations. We were supposed to have a few people in Mumbai next week, but cancelled that.
Then again, with 2 of the nicer hotels out of commission for a bit, maybe it's balancing out. It will probably take a few weeks of low occupancy numbers before the hotels want to start significantly discounting.
I doubt there will be any drop at all. At the high prices they are charging the drop they would need to see to start becoming concerned about their profits is what...30%? 50%? That isn't going to happen. Sure, some people may be postponing a leisure trip indefinitely but business trips are not likely to be postponed for more than a week or two.
What I'm thinking may cause a 30-50% drop is the job losses in NA. If there is a push to bring offshore work back to the US then there will be less of a need for business trips to India. This could bring down the hotel rates. The catch there is that if the Indian economy remains strong relative to the economies of the West then the focus of companies will be even more revenue from India.
In short, I don't expect any impact on the ridiculously high, unjustifiable hotel prices in India.
Has anyone experienced dramatic cutting of hotel room rates in Mumbai, or other Indian cities and resort destinations in the wake of the early December terror attacks in Colaba?
I imagine that there have been widespread cancellations, particularly of group and package holiday bookings, and am aware that virtually every travel security warning service is currently warning against travel to India at the moment.
As anyone who travels to India knows, 5 star hotels in Mumbai and New Delhi are extremely expensive, and I am wondering what sort of aggressive marketing and pricing campaigns will be put in place to attract visitors back to the major cities, and Indian resorts.
There must be huge concerns about how the fall out of the terror attacks in Mumbai will affect the promotional run up to the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
Should I be bargaining hard for a room?
Also, going on your past experience, how quickly will major hotel chains reduce the amount of hotel points required to stay in Indian hotels experiencing low room occupancies?
I found significant discounting of hotel rates from my visit to India last week.
I had a room at the Oberoi in Delhi only last week for as low as 8,000 INR (approx 165 USD), booked directly from their website. Even seasonally adjusted over the holiday period, this is a bargain rate in a hotel renowned as being one of the best if not the best in Delhi (although this will change as soon as the Aman opens).
The Oberoi Amarvilas at Agra are even more a case in point. Prior to the Mumbai attacks the rates over the holiday period started from 42,000 INR (approx 870 USD) a night, and their availability calendar showed that they were pretty full.
In the weeks following the Mumbai attacks most dates suddenly became available and the rates just tumbled - first down to 32,500 but then as low as 25,500 INR (530 USD) a night, effectively a reduction of 40% on their pre-Mumbai attack rates.
I would suggest that there would be less discounting in Mumbai itself as the attacks effectively took two of their largest hotels out of action. Although the number of people travelling to Mumbai no doubt as dropped, the remaining hotels would have increased an demand for rooms resulting from a decreased supply due to the Taj and the Oberoi not taking guests.
Four Seasons Mumbai has plenty of availability and is discounting pretty well. I was in there at around $270+taxes/night with breakfast and airport transfers. They were apparently at 40% capacity before the attacks and were about to transfer out all of their expat staff because they were foundering. The attacks got them a lot of the responders and media, so the past two months have been much better.
Intercon is booked almost to capacity, I was in there for $206+taxes with breakfast and airport transfers.
Note that my prices are being negotiated by locals with some buying power, so those aren't what you will get on the website, but you may be able to call and get something similar.
I am sure that these have been reviewed ad nauseum, but for what it is worth:
- the 4 Seasons is beautiful and well run, staff is a little robotic. Rooms are big and everything is new, so very nice. Good gym and spa area. Pool could be nice if it weren't a giant birdbath and full of pigeon droppings. Good restaurant next door that is part of the hotel (San Qi), but all the restos have 4 Seasons prices. The area around the hotel has nothing to offer, nothing walking distance. If you are commuting to anywhere south of Cumbala Hill, you will spend a lot of time in the car (which is why I moved).
- Intercon is nice enough, older, has more of a boutique feel with only 5 floors of guest rooms. Gym is tiny, rooftop pool has nice views of the water when there is a breeze and the pollution blows away for a few hours. Neighborhood and seafront is very walkable, with some decent enough restaurants so you are not trapped in the hotel.
__________________
The Flyertalk Folding Team, saving the world one CPU at a time. Click the link. No really, click the link.
