It turned out to be a washed-out quarter for Indian Hotels with almost no revenue due to the coronavirus induced lockdown. The company reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 312.60 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The loss, however, was cushioned by an exceptional gain of Rs 86 crores.

Puneet Chhatwal, MD and CEO of Indian Hotels said, “On all available including hotels which are shut down, Ginger is at 40 percent plus and the rest of our brands Taj, Vivanta and hotels under the selections portfolio are combined north of the 20 percent, 20-22 percent occupancy. It is tough, it is very tough because the National Capital, is still shut for business, so we do need a strong business base both in Delhi as well as in Mumbai.”

He further added, “Mumbai has had only partial opening, up to 33 percent of the occupancy, but not restaurants, very limited conference and events business. So if these two pillars are missing till they open up fully the revenues will stay under pressure.”

Talking about construction, he said, “On the finishing part we are witnessing a bit of delay. Normally if you needed one month to finish, now you might need two months to finish because the labour is not available to the extent it was available pre-COVID times.”

While giving his take on the RBI announcement he said, “We as Indian Hotels don’t stand to benefit from that but definitely as the leader of the hotel association of India as well as on the tourism committee of CII we have been requesting the government to help out the sector.”

Indian Hotels had posted a net profit of Rs 4.98 crore for the year-ago in the June quarter. Total income stood at Rs 175.34 crore during the quarter under review. It was Rs 1,057.06 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal.

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