NDMC hotels evoke little interest from hotel chains

While the auction of the Taj Mahal Hotel is in limbo pending the revision of a tender that blocked out many potential bidders, two other properties of New Delhi Municipal Council — Hotel Asian International and Hotel Connaught — also located in the heart of the capital have evoked little interest.
Ever since NDMC announced the auction of the three hotels on December 9, nothing has moved. The last date for bids in the auction of 33-year licences to operate the three hotels was originally January 10 and it has now been revised to March 7, 2018.

“The process will take place at the same time for all three hotels. We have extended the bidding dates,” said an NDMC official, adding that a meeting on the matter has not been convened yet.

A new tender for the 292-room, five-star deluxe Taj Mahal Hotel has not been released. The property, located at No. 1, Mansingh Road, is run by Indian Hotels Company Ltd.

The Connaught, a four-star hotel located on Shaheed Bhagat Singh Marg near Connaught Place, has a swimming pool, 85 rooms, a business centre and a conference room, while Hotel Asian International on 1, Janpath Lane, has 38 rooms. The bid security amount for the hotels was ₹3.92 crore and ₹80 lakh, respectively.

Some hotel companies told they would not bid for the two smaller properties even though they had prime locations. “I’m not bidding for Asian International or Connaught as they are ridiculously priced and not in keeping with the market conditions,” said Patu Keswani, Chairman of Lemon Tree Hotels.

“These two hotels are in really bad shape and we are pretty much looking at a complete renovation, which means the hotel will have to shut down for two to three years which does not make sense financially,” said the executive of a global hotel chain. “Maintenance is a problem... Auctioning these two is going to be a bigger challenge.”