BENGALURU: The tech city is all ready to welcome the New Year amid the surge of Covid-19 JN.1 subvariant. Lakhs of people will be descending on the city to celebrate the New Year and all hotel rooms are already booked. With just three days to go for ringing in the New Year, people are chalking out variouos plans to celebrate.
P C Rao, president of the Greater Bangalore Hotels Association, said, “Over 50,000 hotel rooms are booked, in advance including five-star, three-star, and at resorts. About 70 per cent of hotel rooms are booked until January 2. There is an expectation of walk-in guests too. The main reason for half a lakh hotel bookings in the City is that many NRIs are coming down from aboard on a month-long vacation for Christmas and New Year”.
Besides, there are holidays for schoolchildren. So, people used to come to Bengaluru from North India and from other districts of the state. “There has been a 20 per cent rise in demand for room bookings in hotels. But now, there is a fear of Coronavirus cases rising through foreigners, people from outside the state, and other districts. We will follow the guidelines issued by the government. We will follow precautionary measures, including wearing of masks and use of sanitisers”, Rao said.
“We are expecting an estimated revenue of around Rs 600 crore for the New Year from the hotel industry, and a part of the total revenue, about Rs 200 crore, will go to the government and excise department towards taxes and excise duty”, he added.