Delhi Hotels

Toothpick Stagecoach!

2009-12-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

It took thousands of hours and bucket-loads of patience but a model maker created a life-size stagecoach from 1.5million toothpicks.

Haryana to Provide succour to Delhi Hotel shortage!

2009-07-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

Haryana government has promised to come to the rescue of Delhi government by promising to add a substantial number of hotel rooms for next year's Commonwealth Games 2010.
According to Haryana Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, about 6,000 hotels in Delhi will be ready by the time Delhi plays host to the prestigious event, rated as the second largest sporting event after the Olympics. Now how is Hooda going to make sure that the Hotel rooms are going materialize is another topic.
Delhi is facing an acute shortage of hotel rooms and the occupancy rates in local Delhi hotels are quite high.
The Commonwealth Organising Committee expects that nearly 100,000 spectators will visit Delhi when the event is held in December next year.

The federal Tourism Ministry has estimates that Delhi will require at least 30,000 hotels rooms to accommodate the visiting spectators for the 2010 commonwealth games, while Delhi at present has just about 14,000 hotel rooms.
Haryana government's offer to add 6,000 hotel rooms for the event has thus come as a welcome respite by both the Delhi government and the Commonwealth Organising Committee.
According to Hooda, the decision to add additional hotel rooms is part of his government's plans to encourage tourism in the state. The majority of the hotel rooms will be added in Gurgaon and some in Faridabad.
However, the situation is still far from comfortable. The Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi has already started listing private homes under a bed and breakfast in Delhi scheme to make up for the expected paucity of rooms in the city.

How they are going to make sure that the 6,000 promised rooms are there is anybody’s guess? Property in Delhi being so expensive that you will be hard pressed to acquire land without substantial investment is a big stumbling block.

Let’s see what the future holds for Delhi?

Delhi Hotels popular with British

2009-02-23T04:02:00.001-08:00

Delhi Airport Hotel has experienced a significant growth in becoming a popular destination amongst British tourists, and recession is to take the credit.

According to Opodo.co.uk, an online travel service, flights from Britain to the Indian capital were up by as much as 165 per cent.

The reason was accorded to holidaymakers' preference for a long-haul travel in place of short city breaks against the weakening pound.

Other destinations to have felt the increased bookings were Melbourne with 400 per cent, and Singapore with 219 per cent.

The agressive campaigns by the Delhi Government to make the New Delhi Homestay concept more popular among tourists is another factor.

Hopefully this trend will continue and the increasing number of tourists will give more business to this flegding industry.

Delhi Hotels popular with British

2009-02-23T04:02:00.000-08:00

Delhi Hotels have experienced a significant growth in becoming a popular destination amongst Brit tourists, and recession is to take the credit, say reports.

According to Opodo.co.uk, an online travel service, flights from Britain to the Indian capital were up by as much as 165 per cent.

The reason was accorded to holidaymakers' preference for a long-haul travel in place of short city breaks against the weakening pound.

Other destinations to have felt the increased bookings were Melbourne with 400 per cent, and Singapore with 219 per cent.

Caroline Noble, Opodo UK country director, revealed the booking patterns were a sign that vacationers were dumping cities for one longer holiday outside the country.

Delhi's Worst Hotels!

2009-02-22T06:20:00.000-08:00

According to a respected travel website, Delhi has 8 out of 10 Dirty Hotels in India. Here is a list of New Delhi's Dirtiest Hotels. I would tend to avoid them like the plague.

Not only they have roaches, cracked ceilings, open wires, but broken switches as well. And these Delhi Hotels are part of some of the capitals plushest hotels. Luxury rooms that reek of filth unhelpful staff.

Would you spend your money and time in a roach infested Hotel and Paying them top dollars as they are "Luxury Delhi Hotels"??????

Radisson to Invest 800 crore in New Hotels in Delhi

2009-02-15T16:56:00.000-08:00

A 5 star Delhi Hotel, The Radisson Delhi, promoted by A B group, is investing around Rs 800 crore over the next four years for opening eight more hotels in the country under the brands of Radisson, Park Plaza and Country Inn.

"We are currently operating two of the Radisson hotels in India in Delhi and Varanasi. We have now plans for eight new hotels under Carlson Group's Radisson, Park Plaza and Country Inn brands at an investment of Rs 800 crore," Radisson Hotel Delhi Managing Director R Kapur told PTI.

He said the new hotels would come up at Bhubaneshwar, Chilka Lake, Hyderabad, Konark, Puri, Paradip, Vishakhapatnam, and Kakinada and the investment would come from the company's internal accrual and debt.

"We have currently an inventory of 400 rooms in our two existing hotels. With the new hotels in place, our inventory would reach a figure of 1,000," Kapur added.

The hotels at Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad and Kakinada would come under the Radisson brand (5-star) and the other five would be of Park Plaza (mid-premium) and Country Inn (mid-economy) brands.

The company is also undertaking a Rs 100-crore renovation of the existing Radisson in Delhi and repositioning it in the 5-star deluxe segment as 'Radisson Plaza'.

This means that other Delhi Hotels will have a tough time to attract customers. With The Radisson brand going from strength to strength, it won't be long before they have covered the whole of India under their belt.

England - a Sucker's Country!

2009-02-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

Purani Jeans Video

2009-02-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

China has more Online User's!

2009-02-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

According to comScore, the number of people worldwide going online has passed one billion for the first time in January. And almost 180 million internet users-over one in six of the world's online population-live in China, more than any other country.

Until a few months ago, the United States had most web users, but with 163 million people online, or over half of its total population, it has reached saturation point. More populous countries such as China, Brazil and India have many more potential users and will eventually overtake those western countries with already high penetration rates.

The more populous counties’ increasing internet use is expected to drive growth for local online companies like Chinese online gaming company Shanda Interactive, online media company Sina,com, Chinese online travel agency Ctrip, web portal Sohu.com, the Google of China, Baidu, and China Finance Online.

The other countries with high internet use include Japan with 160 million online users, Germany and Britain with around 37 million Internet users each, and France, with 34 million. India follows with 32 million, Russia with 29 million and Brazil with 27 million users.

Delhi Commonwealth Games - no Hotel rooms for visitors.

2009-01-30T04:15:00.000-08:00

IN LESS THAN one year from now New Delhi would be the center of the world when the Commonwealth Games 2010 commence. Almost all the changes you see around New Delhi at present and in not so distant past are connected to the Commonwealth Games. Whether it is the widening of the roads, a new concern for our environment, the extension of the metro or smoking, everything is somehow or the other related to the Commonwealth Games.

The Commonwealth Games 2010 would be held from October 3 to 14, 2010, but the 10-day event is all set to change New Delhi forever.

New Delhi would be the hosting the Commonwealth Games for the first time in the organization’s 90-year-old history and would be the second city in Asia to do so. Kuala Lumpur had hosted the event in 1998.

New Delhi won the bid to host the Commonwealth Games in 2003 by 46 votes to 22 against Hamilton. For those who have heard the name of Hamilton for the first time, it is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Indian Olympic Committee president Suresh Kalmadi who led the bid from the Indian side had promised at that time to host "the best, most progressive Commonwealth Games ever."

The government of India would sanction the budget for both the capital cost and the cost of operations incurred in hosting the Commonwealth Games. Overall the government of New Delhi has been sanctioned a budget of 5, 200 crores for infrastructural development which would be disbursed over a period of four years.

The agencies involved in the construction of sports infrastructure are the SAI, DDA, AITA, NDMC, DU and the government of the national capital region (NCR) of New Delhi.

The first and major construction in this regard is the Commonwealth Games village on the Yamuna riverbed. The DDA is the agency responsible for its construction. The games village is proposed to have 14 blocks, 978 flats and 8,354 beds with attached toilet and air conditioning.

Other new sports infrastructure include new outdoor greens for Lawn Bowls, a new indoor stadium for weightlifting, new indoor stadia for wrestling, badminton, squash, table tennis and netball. A new facility for rugby would be constructed at New Delhi University.

Apart from the games what would really affect the life in New Delhi is the ‘development’ of the city infrastructure. Here the planning is almost revolutionary. Even 25 per cent of the proposed construction could have won a political party any election.

Ten flyovers are to be constructed along with the widening of all ‘important’ roads leading to the games venues. A new tunnel project to connect the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium with the games village has been proposed to reduce the travel time to and from the games village.

New Delhi would have 6,000 additional buses by the year 2010. Out of these 1,100 buses would be low floor, high capacity air-conditioned buses.

Measures are underway to ensure that New Delhi gets 5,880 MW of power by 2010. At present the power supply to New Delhi varies between 3000 MW to 2900 MW per day.

Indira Gandhi International airport is to have brand new international and domestic terminals along with an aero bridge connecting the two. And the New Delhi Metro would be extended up to the airport and connect it to the New Delhi railway station.

The government of New Delhi wants a smoke-free city ahead of the Commonwealth and has joined hands with the Bloomberg Global Initiative in order to achieve that end. Chandigarh is the only smoke-free city in India at present.

So far as Delhi accommodation is concerned the ministry of tourism is in touch with various land owning agencies for identification of hotel sites. DDA has so far identified 34 sites for the construction of hotels in Gaziabad, Noida Hotels and Delhi Bed and Breakfast, which would provide New Delhi with 6,600 hotel rooms. Apart from this, ministry of finance has granted a tax holiday for five years for two, three and four star hotels set up between this financial year (2007) and the end of financial year 2009-10, in the NCR of New Delhi and districts of Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Faridabad.

The government is planning to stop analogue broadcast in New Delhi before the commonwealth games. Prasar Bharati is to start high definition TV service on an experimental basis soon. New Delhi is to become the first city in India to have digital broadcast through conditional access system by the time commonwealth games arrive.

Even the tourist guides would not be left untouched as the tourism department would soon prepare guidelines for recruitment, registration and monitoring of guides in New Delhi.

Moreover, a Commonwealth Games Volunteer Programme is to be launched, as New Delhi would require more than 50,000 volunteers for the games.

Dreams vs Reality

So far as infrastructure is concerned, the status report published by the Organizing Committee Commonwealth Games reveals that only on five venues has the work started, that too only recently.

The first of these venues is the Commonwealth games village on the Yamuna. According to the report the work on it started in August.
The second venue is the venue for the Opening ceremony, work on which according to the said report started in August too. The opening ceremony is to be held at Jawaharlal Nehru sports complex, which is also the venue for Lawn Bowls and Weightlifting. The infrastructure for these sports is still in the design phase, with the final designs yet being developed.

Then comes the Thyagraj Sports Complex, which is the venue for netball. The report reveals that work has started on the venue middle of September.

Work on the venue for Gymnastics, in Indira Gandhi sports complex is to start a couple of days from now. The complex would also be the site for cycling and wrestling. The concept design for the former game is still being developed, while final designs are being developed for the venue of the latter game.

Then we come to hockey. Major Dhyan Chand Stadium would host the national game. The report states that further work keeping the games in mind started at the fag end of October.

Swimming competitions would be held at the Dr SP Mukherjee Swimming stadium. The final designs the infrastructural upgradation of the stadium is still in the design phase.

Talkatora Indoor stadium would host Boxing, the upgradation for which started from November this year, according to the status report.

The work on the venues for badminton, squash, table tennis, tennis and rugby are yet to start while the work on the venues for Archery (both qualification and Finals) and shooting are still in the design phase. Also, the Media Press Centre and Broadcasting Centre and the Accreditation Centre and warehouse are still clipped to the drawing board.

Projects for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006 were completed and their delivery had started nearly a couple of years before the opening ceremony. But in India’s case project completion would be mission accomplished

Tripadvisor - are the reviews fair?

2009-01-25T05:16:00.000-08:00

Tripadvisor.com is a leading portal for hotel reviews, bed and breakfast and resort review.

Many of the Delhi hotels depend solely on Tripadvisor for business. As more and more people go online, they find that Tripadvisor exposes them to other people review's. These user generated reviews are supposed to be the back bone of the popularity of the Tripadvisor.

As Martin Kelly from Travel Trends points out that the system is easy to game and all the reviews should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Even though Tripadvisor states that they are clean and they do all they can to avoid fraudulent reviews. An investigation by TimesOnline found that Tripadvisor is easy to game.

I am sure the time will come when the travellers will get wise to it and will be able to make up their minds that Tripadvisor is not all about the truth.

What do you think - Pen it down

2009-01-24T06:50:00.000-08:00