Covid-19 scare in Chennai: Bookings hit, star hotels forced to revise tariff – Times of India

Star hotels across the city are recording a steep fall in occupancy rates as several domestic travellers and inbound tourists have cancelled their reservations due to the scare of novel coronavirus. This has forced several top hotels to slash their room tariff.
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South India Hotels and Restaurants Association honarary secretary T Nataraajan said star hotels are witnessing an average room cancellation rate of 20% after the outbreak. “We are expecting a revival only in October, if the restrictions on travel continues,” he said. The hospitality sector will be hit hard, he said.

Several luxe hotels are offering discounts to sell their rooms, some on par with tariff offered by online portals. A three-star hotel on Anna Salai has reduced its usual tariff by 1,500 as a majority of foreigners have cancelled their travel plans. “Yes, there has been a slew of cancellations from overseas. This has resulted in discounts,” said an employee handling reservations at the hotel.
The current cost of a room in a four-star hotel ranges from 4,500 and 6,300 per night.
Another five star hotel in T. Nagar is keeping its facility outof-bounds for foreign nationals. “We are cancelling rooms booked by people from countries identified by the Union government as most-infected by Covid-19,” a hotel official said.
A source from the travel industry said some of the hotels have not even got around 6% of their rooms booked in April. April and May is usually lean season when it comes to foreign tourists but hotels make up that deficit from domestic and business travellers.
Chennai and its suburbs have about 200 star hotels with nearly 150 three star hotels. As a precautionary measure, apart from installing sanitiser-dispensing machines, some star hotels have installed thermal scanners to check the body temperature of their patrons.