Rain Pain Hits TN Hospitality Sector With Fewer Footfalls

The Tourism industry in Tamil Nadu has taken a beating with the heavy rains crippling travel plans of inbound visitors to the State.

CHENNAI: The Tourism and Hospitality industry in Tamil Nadu has taken a beating with the heavy rains crippling travel plans of inbound tourists and business visitors to the State. While South India Hotels & Restaurants Association (SIHRA) claims there were several cancellations for reserved rooms in luxury hotels, though it did not quantify the volume, the Tamil Nadu Hotels Association (TNHA) says hotels below the range of one star are witnessing a drop in occupancy rate by 25 per cent since Deepavali, in the wake incessant downpours. Some hoteliers raised concerns over the monsoon predictions for the next couple of days, which has already prompted tourists to put off their visits, leading to mass cancellation of rooms. “There have been cancellations of rooms due to the floods caused by torrential rains. Hotels situated in Chennai were affected, as some business travellers dropped their travel plans,” says SIHRA’s president of honour M P Purushothaman.

SIHRA is a leading hotel association with a membership of 288 hotels ranging from two-star to five-star deluxes, across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Even as he did not reveal the volume of cancellations, Purushothaman told Express that they would be studying it in the future.

TNHA, which has over 9,500 restaurants associated with it and about 250 hotels below one star as its members, has estimated an occupancy rate of just 40 per cent this month. “However, the corresponding occupancy rate during November last year was 65 per cent. There are visible cancellations expected for hotels in Madurai and Coimbatore,” Venkadasubbu, president of TNHA said, adding that rains had played spoilsport on their business. Tour operators, on the other hand, claimed that tourists were put to hardship as rains prevented people from venturing out.  V K T Balan, a member of the Travel Agents Association of India, said that the industry had suffered 30 per cent losses.

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