DLF –Hilton’ Indian Hotel Plan Emerges

Hilton's relationship with The Oberoi group may have ended but that has not soured Hilton's enthusiasm for India. Mayhap, having learnt from the experience the company will now work with a number of partners instead of a single exclusive relationship.

Hilton has a joint venture with Delhi based developer to institute hotels in the country called DLF-Hilton hotels. The alliance between Oberoi and Hilton came to an end on April 1, 2008. More brands will be there in india.

DLF Hilton will be launching the luxury Hilton brand, the business hotel brand Garden Inn as well as extended stay brand Homewood. Other brands of Hilton not mentioned in the DLF deal include Doubletree, Embassy Suites Hotels, Hampton Inn & Suites, Hilton Grand Vacations, The Waldorf-Astoria Collection, and Hilton Honors. The first DLF-Hilton hotel is expected to be ready at Saket in New Delhi.

These projects are in various stages of development and construction, and will come up in cities like New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Trivandrum, and Chandigarh. DLF will build the hotels and will be managed by an affiliate of Hilton Hotels Corporation in India.

Hotel Occupancy Tax

A hotel's owner, operator, or manager draws hotel taxes from their recipients of hospitality provided by them. For the purposes of the tax, a hotel is adjured to be any building in which guests rent sleeping accommodations for $15 or more per day. Local hotel levy taxes for sleeping rooms up to$2 or more per day.

The tax covers business hotels, leisure resorts, and bed and breakfasts, as well as condominiums, apartments, and houses rented for less than 30 consecutive days. Hotel tax is not being applied to hospitals, sanitariums, nursing homes, student dormitories operated by colleges and universities, or condominiums, apartments, and houses leased for more than 30 consecutive days.

The state hotel tax is 6 percent. Cities and some counties can each levy local hotel generally at rates varying up to 7 percent; sports and community venue projects can levy hotel taxes at rates varying up to 2 percent.

Hotel Industry can get Infrastructure Status

The Ministry of Tourism instructed Indian tourism organizations to unite a alliance under a common umbrella so that their voice could heard as one. Arguing at a panel discussion on Impact of Global Meltdown and Terrorism: India Tourism Fights Back organized by FICCI, Sujit Banerjee, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, said: “I would like the infinitive agencies in the hospitality domain to inaugurate an pinnacle federation of tourism industry so that the entire industry could work with one intent”.

Banerjee said that the Ministry of Tourism has made a intense pitch to the various arms of the government including the Reserve Bank of India to bestow infrastructure status to the hotel industry. “There is some consent that the hotel sector may be granted that status provided to the corporate entity involved in the hotel industry that sets up a hotel. This status, however, may not be accorded to developers who set up hotels”.

The terrorist strike of November 2008 in Mumbai was the first direct attack on the hospitality domain and we have to confront the challenge and be able to show to the world that we are one in fighting back, Banerjee said, adding that the Ministry of Tourism has made a strong declaration for relief to the tourism sector in income tax, service tax, road tax and easier access to credit.