Games panel starts booking hotel rooms

With time running out, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) has set the process rolling for creating accommodation for the officials and delegates coming for the Games next year.

With time running out, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) has set the process rolling for creating accommodation for the officials and delegates coming for the Games next year.

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After dilly-dallying for months, the OC has finally started blocking rooms in the existing city hotels for the visitors.

It has set up a Games Travel Office, which will be responsible for booking up to 40 per cent of the hotel rooms for the games.

“The travel office has become operational and it has started blocking rooms for the games. We have appointed Le Passage as the travel desk operator,” V.K. Verma, director general, OC.

About one lakh tourists are expected to visit Delhi during the sporting extravaganza.

So far, the OC travel office has blocked 2,271 rooms in different five, four and three star hotels across the city.

While the maximum — 1,786 rooms — have been booked in five star hotels including Hyatt Regency, Taj Palace, Ashok, Nikko and ITC Maurya Sheraton, 485 rooms have been booked in four star hotels like Janpath, Ramada Plaza, Parkland among others. Another 2,000 rooms have been booked in three star hotels.

The authorities have fallen way short of tiding over the shortage of 30,000 hotel rooms in the city. The government planned to add 26,774 hotel rooms.

According to Union Tourism Ministry figures, of the total planned rooms only 9,597 (35 per cent) are guaranteed to come up before the Games.

As on September 4, just 41 per cent (3,952) of these guaranteed rooms are ready.