The increase of tourist influx in Delhi and the approaching Commonwealth Games have impelled the city’s luxury hotels to launch a makeover drive. The underlying principle is: The customers are ready to pay if they are assured of good services, sumptuous cuisine and luxurious accommodation. Moreover nothing would seem good enough for you if you are ready to pay for a dose of pure luxury. Its time the global nomads get to spend some time on the laps of luxury after scripting profitable and gigantic mergers and colossal business deals.

The five stars hotels in Delhi know this fact from their experience.

With the competition getting tougher by the day and the new entrants making forays into luxury tourism market, Delhi’s five star hotels are furiously renovating their guest facilities. The drawing boards have been laid out and the master architects and craftsmen are spending days and nights painting new pictures of glamorous stay in the capital’s hotels. The hotel managements are spending crores of rupees to make sure that their guests enjoy an immaculate peace of a Zen master in their hotels rather than at their competitor’s hotel.

Hotel Ashok, owned by the India Tourism Development Corporation Limited (ITDC) was the first to take lead in launching a makeover project. The estimated renovation cost is expected to be Rs150 crores. The grand hotel in the midst of the city will undergo a complete face lift. The authorities emphasize that with more than 3.89 million foreign tourists visiting India generating Rs 30,000-crore revenue annually, they have no other choice.”

Tarun Thakral of Le Meridian echoes the same views when he says, “We have been through the largest renovation ever at our hotel recently, to keep up with the demands of the guests and the competition. These days guests need facilities like wireless and video conferencing in rooms which we have to provide for. About 75 per cent of our guests this year were foreigners and we have to provide them services and luxury which are at par with the world-class standards.”

Indian guests too are no less demanding than their foreign counterparts. They are equally discerning and demand privileged and customized services. Expressing this opinion Rifaquat Ali Khan Mirza, executive assistant manager at The Park, says, “Indians today are equally discerning, equally high-paying and equally demanding customers as any of our western guests. They are traveling all around the world and are leading similar lifestyle and are using equivalent technologies. Most of them are business travelers and any hotel that doesn’t make a similar style statement will struggle.” Incidentally, hotle ‘The Park’ is also undergoing comprehensive renovation.

The renovation work in theses hotels generally involves using a theme of elements for their restaurants, hiring world’s best designers, giving facilities like Wi-Fi, DVD players, LCD TVs in every room, ergonomic work chairs, four fixture bathrooms etc.