Either paper notices declaring “hotel is closed” or locked entrance gates greet visitors to these premises for the past 12 days.
The lockdown due to coronavirus from March 22 has resulted in closure of about 3,000 below three-star hotels, 120 above three-star hotels and a few standalone posh restaurants.
On March 22, when the Janata Curfew was observed and brought life to a standstill, the hotel managements had no clue that they will be asked to shut down from the next day as part of a nationwide lockdown.
Police landed at hotels that day and ordered eviction of inmates, which was mostly obliged by them as the railways had already cancelled all train services and domestic flights were to follow suit from the midnight of March 24.
Barring a few guests, who could not get flight tickets, all star hotels reported zero occupancy from March 25 till date. The story was no different in the 3,000-odd economy hotels and lodges with inmates either taking shelter with their local contacts or returning home by road with several stoppages by police en route.
The loss of income from March 25 has hit the hotel managements, particularly below star hotels, hard as almost all of them are leased premises which were due for payment of rent before 10th of every month. The building owners pressed for rent from the beginning of the month. Even the smallest of lodge paid a monthly rent of ₹1 lakh while it went up to ₹30 lakh to ₹40 lakh per month for large ones, according to VP of Telangana State Hotels’ Association Kancharla Ashok Reddy.
He said rent, staff salary and electricity bills constituted the major expenditure of hotels. As hotels were run with residential workers, they had to be supplied food in addition to payment of salaries. The electricity charges were a minimum of ₹50,000 and went up to ₹3 lakh depending on the number of rooms.
Mr. Reddy said that April was typically a month of heavy expenditure for hotels because they were liable to pay various licences at the beginning of the new financial year. The trade licence fee was perhaps the biggest one.
President of Hotels and Restaurants’ Association of Telangana Ashok Hemrajani said that star hotels had to pay bar licence fee and property tax in addition to meeting routine expenditure in April. He did not expect immediate relief for hotels even after reopening as the revival period could take long to attract guests and set the house in order.
