Short of hotels, Gurgaon to take guests home

Gurgaon will offer Bed & Breakfast facilities to guests during the Commonwealth Games in 2010.

The Haryana government approved the scheme to bridge the demand and supply gap in hotel rooms at the NCR towns, including Gurgaon.

The projected capacity of Haryana’s NCR towns is around 8,000 rooms as against a requirement of more than 10,000 rooms.

Till now, 25 houses have been issued licence under the Bed & Breakfast Scheme by the Central government in Gurgaon.

Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner Rajender Kumar Kataria who is the nodal officer for the 2010 Games for NCR towns in Haryana, said it will take longer than expected to build hotels, especially when the hotel industry is facing a financial crisis and the real estate market was in a virtual slump.

He said the bed & breakfast scheme seemed to be the only alternative in such a situation.

“At present there are about 100 bed & breakfasts facilities in Gurgaon and Faridabad,” he said. "We have been able to meet a target of 7,000 plus rooms.”

The house owners will be able to apply under this scheme and offer a maximum of five rooms for renting to guests with complimentary services like power backup, Wi-Fi, air-conditioning and 24X7 security.

Once approved for licensing, the state government will market the facility online.

At present, two kinds of licences are being issued to owners — silver and gold — which have different criteria and payment slots.

The house owners are supposed to fill Form-C and submit it to the respective offices when they have a foreign tourist staying with them.

The government fixes the room rents and the quality of food and services provided are monitored.

The guesthouse owners too have claimed that they would offer the unused rooms.

“We have more than 250 guest houses with 20 rooms each on an average. As 40 to 50 per cent of them remain unused, we would be a great help during the Games,” said Sunil Bawa, the vice-president of Gurgaon Guest House Association. “The state government has not formulated a policy for the guest houses so far. Now, that the Games are less than year away, the state government should come out with a policy to get optimum advantage.”