Guwahati to get Taj, Gateway and Ginger hotels under Adani-IHCL deal

Guwahati is set to get three new hotels, a Taj, a Gateway and a Ginger, under an agreement between Adani Airport Holdings Limited (AAHL) and The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), the Tata group company that runs the Taj brand.

The deal, announced on Thursday, October 29, covers eight hotels with more than 2,000 rooms in total across four cities: Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Guwahati. Adani Airports will develop the properties and IHCL will operate them.

What Guwahati gets

Of the eight hotels, Guwahati's share is three, spread across price points:

• Taj, IHCL's luxury brand
• Gateway, its upscale brand aimed at business and leisure travellers
• Ginger, its mid-scale brand

Across all four cities, the agreement includes three Taj hotels, two Vivanta hotels, one Gateway and two Ginger properties. Room counts for the individual Guwahati hotels and timelines for opening have not been announced.

The hotels are expected to offer rooms, restaurants, meeting and event spaces, and wellness and leisure facilities, with business travellers, tourists and transit passengers in mind.

Part of a larger Airport City plan

The hotels are part of Adani Airports' plan to build "Airport City" developments around the airports it runs, combining hotels with retail, offices and leisure space. The group operates Guwahati's Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport.

Adani Airport City Limited, the company set up for these projects, has a land bank of more than 655 acres across eight airports in seven states. In the first phase, it plans to invest more than ₹20,000 crore to develop around 22 million square feet across Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur and Guwahati.

Jeet Adani, a director of Adani Airport Holdings, said airports around the world were turning into destinations in their own right that drive trade, tourism and urban growth, and that the partnership would add to the hospitality offer inside the group's Airport City projects.

IHCL managing director and CEO Puneet Chhatwal said developments built around airports were becoming important business and hospitality hubs as Indian air travel grows.

Why it matters for the North East

Guwahati is the main air gateway to the eight North Eastern states, and demand for branded hotel rooms has been growing with tourism to Kaziranga, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as conferences and government events in the city. Three new branded hotels at different price levels could add capacity for travellers who often need an overnight halt before onward journeys.

How much the projects change the city's hotel market will depend on how quickly they are built and how many rooms each one has, details that have yet to be made public.