Taj Lands Ends Service Apartment Plan On Hold For Now

Mumbai, Nov 3: | Updated: Nov 4 2003, 05:30am hrs

As part of its repositioning strategy, Taj Lands End, Mumbai - part of Indian Hotels Company Ltds (IHCL) luxury hotels - has put its plan to set up service apartments on hold for the time being, and is actively focussing on the food and beverage (F&B) business.

Speaking to FE, Taj Lands End general manager Farhat Jamal said that the F&B segment is the hotels top priority now and work on the apartments might begin sometime next year. He, however, declined to give any fixed date.

Mr Jamal said that the proposed apartments were to be a mixture of three, two and single bedroom apartments and hotel facilities would be available to these apartments.

There are 47 proposed apartments on the top four floors of the hotel and the project should take off only sometime next year, Mr Jamal said.

Talking about the investment, Mr Jamal added that though no real investment plans have been finalised, the apartments should fall on the set amount of Rs 30 crore for renovations of the hotel. There might be fresh investments, though it should be done through internal accruals, he added.

Mr Jamal added that as F&B is the hotels main priority, it is in talks to open another F&B outlet in the near future.

On the future trends in the hotel sector, he said that there will be an increasing focus on setting up apartments within hotels, and hotels are all gearing up to be multi-use hotels which is quite a popular trend now. Since the hotel is centrally located, this is its biggest asset, Mr Jamal added.