New Delhi has over 1200 heritage buildings that can be converted into hotels to overcome the problem of rooms shortage for the Commonwealth Games, finds Syed Ameen Kader
The city of Delhi is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world and the capital city still contains the remnants of many rulers who made this their capital city. But with the Commonwealth games looming larger, the city continues to faces major infrastructural challenges- accommodation being a primary one.
Delhi has a huge task of adding about 30,000 to 40,000 hotel rooms to overcome its shortfall of supply.
The current economic situation has further added to the problem. “Those projects which are in the excavation stage or even at a stage where construction has begun may find it difficult to actually be operational by the Games,” said Akshay Kulkarni, director, South Asia, Cushman & Wakefield Hospitality.
Finding an alternative to the accomodation problem has thus become a necessity. There are quite a few proposals floating around to overcome the shortage of room supply in Delhi. One of them is converting Delhi’s heritage buildings into hotels. Some of the other suggestions are adding to existing inventory of hotels by enhancing FSI or to convert some homes into Bed & Breakfast. The city has over 1200 heritage buildings which can potentially be converted into heritage serai hotels. This will not only help solve the problem of room shortage but also will provide a new lease of life to these century old structures.
According to a survey done by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the 1200 buildings are spread across the city at Qutab Minar Complex, Mehrauli, Shahjahanbad and Civil lines. Some of these can be converted into heritage serai hotels,, while others can be converted into restaurants, cultural centres, educational institutions and offices etc.
Present laws, however, are not very industry friendly and it’s a nightmare for an owner to convert his heritage building into a hotel as there are no well defined rules. There is no policy in place today to promote conversation of heritage serai buildings into hotels in New Delhi. Currently, the Indian tourism department has a policy which grades properties as heritage structures after they are already in use.
“If the central and state Government together make a standard policy for New Delhi which will allow these heritage buildings to be used for hospitability purpose, this will help the city take care of the vast influx of tourists in a much shorter span of time than a new hotel,” said Sanjeev Batra, founder of Friends of Heritage Society, a society of likeminded heritage lovers who work towards conservation of Indian heritage. His family also owns a heritage property called ‘Kutub Serai’ in Mehrauli area of Delhi which was built in 1859.
He said there are several other owners who are willing to use their existing serai building for use as heritage serai hotels. But it’s very difficult to get prior permission to run a heritage serai hotel and unless that becomes a law, most people will not put in the money to fit them out for tourist use. Batra says there is a need for the government to give some kind of incentives to promote heritage serai hotels in Delhi.
“The city has huge shortage of hotel rooms and that’s why many of the travelers are moving out to neighbouring cities. So if one can provide accommodation within the city and that too with true Indian ambience which one can experience in a heritage hotel, you will not only solve the problem of shortfall but also these properties will get a new lease of life. A beginning must be made somewhere” said Batra.
The people owning heritage properties are generally inexperienced and in many cases are not financially in strong position to invest on their own. Also, raising fund for hotels in current scenario is not an easy task. The feasibility factor is something one also has to look at.
Kulkarni is not very much convinced with the idea of converting Delhi’s heritage buildings into hotels. “Since a hotel has many nuances in terms of the electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc. Also layouts need to be such that they complement work flow and enhance service. It will be to my mind difficult to convert a lot of these heritage buildings easily into hotels, unless they were originally built to provide transient accommodation and then were converted into something else in the interim period,” Kulkarni said.
He said that the feasibility of converting a heritage building to a hotel will really depend on the location and the state the building is in.
“In the context of Delhi I doubt if it will be possible to convert some of the heritage buildings into hotels and run them profitably for the games,” added Kulkarni.
But Batra thinks once a policy is made, operators who wish to do this will come to owners and offer to work with them on this jointly. Finance will come once there is a regular policy. He says none of the havelis in Rajasthan were made to be run as hotels but once the state encouraged them, the people followed and soon after every village started to come up with a resort.
