Tourism corporation to rope in pvt parties to run its hotels, restaurants

To increase revenue from its profit-making hotels and bring the loss-making units out of the red, the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) will rope in private players to run its properties on the operate and management (ONM) basis.

Segregated on profit basis

• All 55 hotels and restaurants have been segregated into A, B and C categories on the basis of good and average profit and loss-making units. It has been decided to run the hotels on the ONM basis with the help of private players to maximise profits, says Raghubir Singh Bali, Chairman of the HPTDC
• The ownership of the properties will remain with the state government and the HPTDC employees will continue to work on the same terms and conditions
• Bali says that the government is yet to take a decision regarding how to go about the 20 loss-making properties

At present, 35 of the 55 hotels and restaurants being run by the state government-owned HPTDC are making losses. Successive Congress and BJP governments had leased some of the loss-making properties but at present, the HPTDC was running all 55 properties. Now, the Congress government has decided to rope in private players to the hospitality sector to offer professional high-end services.

“We have segregated all 55 hotels and restaurants into A, B and C categories on the basis of good and average profit and loss-making units. We have decided to run the hotels on the ONM basis with the help of private players to maximise profits,” says Raghubir Singh Bali, Chairman of the HPTDC. He clarifies that the ownership of the properties will remain with the government and the HPTDC employees will continue to work on the same terms and conditions.

Bali says that the government is yet to take a decision regarding how to go about the 20 loss-making properties. “Our endeavour is to hand over the operation and management of our units to the private players so that the revenue from these can be increased considering their immense potential,” he adds.

It is surprising that many of the loss-making units are located at popular hill stations like Kasauli, Kullu, Manali, Dalhousie, Naldehra, McLeodganj and Dharamsala. Though the new Ros Common hotel at Kasauli, a favourite weekend getaway place, is in profit but the old unit is incurring losses.

The most profitable properties of the HPTDC are Hotel Holiday Home (Shimla), Palace Hotel (Chail), Kunzam (Manali), Hotel Castle (Naggar), New Ros Common (Kasauli), Peterhoff (Shimla), Meghdoot (Kiarighat), Pine Wood (Barog), Log Huts (Manali), Bhagsu (Dharamsala), Tea Bud (Palampur) and Hatu (Narkanda), among others.

The HPTDC is amongst the 12 loss-making public sector undertakings of the state government. It had a strength of around 1,800 employees and over Rs 122.38 crore loss on March 31, 2022. In the present circumstances when private players have come to the tourism sector in a big way and opened units even in the most remote corners of the state, the HPTDC can afford to withdraw and hand over its properties to them.

In the past also, the HPTDC had leased some of its restaurants like Lake View, Bilaspur, to private players.