20,000+ rooms shut down

Hazel Jain

India’s monthly occupancy reached a pandemic high in February (53.9%), which looked to be solid progress toward recovery as the monthly level was roughly 73% of 2019. By April, however, occupancy in the country fell to 31%, and more recently, just 21.5% for the week ending 30 May. During the week ending 30 May, Mumbai saw the country’s highest occupancy level (43.2%) among STR defined markets, which was 60% of the comparable week in 2019. That said, sharing some data on the estimated number of hotels that have closed down since COVID hit us, Vidhi Godiawala, STR’s business development manager for South and Central Asia, says, “We cannot comment on the future possibilities and permanent closures. However, our data presently shows 270 properties (20,067 rooms) temporarily closed in India due to the pandemic.”