News: Pune checks in, Hyderabad checks out

(DNA 09/08/2006) Kolkata - Pune has unseated Hyderabad in the hotel-room occupancy numbers game. Despite having registered the highest occupancy among major Indian cities in financial year 2005-06, the city of pearls, it seems, is making way for Pune.

Overall, in June, the average revenue per available room (RevPAR) across 10 cities rose by about 41% over the same period last year as room demand increased by 8.5% while average room revenues moved up from 64.93% to 67.17%.

Thanks to a 10.6% increase in foreign tourist arrivals into India in June 2006, Goa recorded the highest growth in occupancy during the month, to a hefty 62% during the month from 54.7% in the year-ago period. According to the latest CRISINFAC report, in the first three months (April-June, 2006) of the new fiscal, Pune has topped the occupancy charts with an occupancy rate of 83.9% against Hyderabad’s 81.2%, thanks to a heightened investment activity coupled with a supply crunch.

Compared with the same period in 2005, Hyderabad’s occupancy rate had been a tad higher at 83.8% against Pune’s 82.9%.

In the three-month period of April-June 2006, Hyderabad’s rate of occupancy has spread more horizontally thanks to the recent launch of the Viceroy as a Marriott brand and the international business hotel Novotel earlier, while Pune’s has accelerated by a little over 1%.

Even on a year-on-year basis, Pune leads the occupancy charge among key business and leisure destinations with an occupancy rate of 84.2% in June 2006 against Hyderabad’s 83.2%. Here too, it seems the rate of growth in the southern city was lower, showing a 3.25% decline compared with the year-ago period while Pune’s hotels have seen an increase of about 2% in occupancy levels.