Delhi Airport: Chalet plans to invest Rs 300 crore in new luxury hotel at Delhi airport

Chalet Hotels, owner, developer, asset manager and operator of high-end hotels in India, is earmarking about ₹300 crore for its upcoming luxury hotel at Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital, its managing director Sanjay Sethi told ET.

In May this year, Chalet Airport Hotel, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chalet Hotels, had signed a franchise agreement for the airport hotel with Tata Group-backed Indian Hotels Company (IHCL). The agreement was for the Taj brand.

The hotel, being built on a warm shell lease arrangement between Chalet Hotels and Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), is expected to open by the end of FY26.

“Because they (DIAL) are building the shell and the facade etc., our capex work will start when they have at least finished the basement and the couple of floors above ground,” said Sethi, who is also the CEO. “We have got about 300,000 sq ft of built-up area within the project. We will be able to build roughly about 390 keys over there. We will end up spending about ₹300 crore.”

Sethi said he expects five-digit average daily rates, 90%-plus occupancy rate, and high food and beverages (F&B) sales from the upcoming airport hotel.

“This hotel is a franchising arrangement with IHCL, which means that while they will give their Taj brand to the hotel along with their loyalty programme, distribution support and access to their sales network, the day-to-day operations will be run by our team,” said Sethi. “This is similar to what we have done with Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Vashi. You will see more and more control of operations of the hotels remaining with us in our portfolio.”

Chalet has about 900 rooms under development and will invest about ₹100 crore in revamping The Dukes Retreat, Khandala. It bought the 80-room resort spread over 7.5 acres in March this year for ₹133 crore.

“The resort needs a lot of renovation. We are adding more rooms, so the 80 rooms that we have there will increase to about 145-150 rooms. The resort had an average room rate of ₹8,000 with occupancies in the 70% range,” he added.