Chennai: The city based star hotel chain, GRT Hotels and Resorts, is awaiting building sanctions for its Coimbatore and Hyderabad projects.

GRT Hotels is part of the popular jewellery outlet in Chennai, G R Thangamaligai and operates three brands, viz, GRT Grand (four star) GRT Regency (three star) and foreign brand Radisson (five star). The first two are owned by GRT Hotels. The group also has a beach resort at Mahabalipuram, near Chennai.

The Coimbatore and Hyderabad hotels will spot the GRT Grand label, offering five star facilities.

Detailing the Coimbatore project M O Koshy, executive director, business development, said, "The 168 room business class hotel will come up in a 2 acre plot on the Avinashi Road."

Designed by Canada-based architect Arup Datta, the hotel will be eco-friendly, energy efficient and saving on water. "The Canadian architects are good at space utilisation," Koshy added.

An industrial city with textile mills and foundry units Coimbatore is now attracting several information technology (IT) companies.

In addition, Tirupur, the hosiery hub, is located very near to Coimbatore.

As a result, Coimbatore gets lots of business visitors and GRT Hotels expects to have a share in the growing pie.

On the other hand, the Hyderabad hotel would cater to business class as well as tourists.

The 200-room hotel, to come up on a 1.68 acre plot, is designed by Malaysian architectural firm SAA architects. "The hotel design will be such that it would fuse the cultural heritage of Hyderabad with that of the modern outlook," says Koshy.

The new projects apart GRT Hotels is looking for opportunities in Bangalore and Vizag while expanding its existing hotels.

According to Koshy, GRT Radisson, the four star hotel near the Chennai airport, will get another 68 rooms. Necessary land for the expansion has also been acquired.

In addition, the hotel''s restaurant offering oriental cuisine is being converted and would now offer Mediterranean cuisine.
Plans have been finalised to build more cottages at the Temple Bay beach resort at Mahabalipuram.

Similarly, expansions are also planned at Madurai and Kanchipuram where it has hotels under management under a third brand GRT Regency.

The Rs100 crore hotel division of G R Thangamaligai, a popular jewellery shop, is also targeting the growing serviced apartment segment.

The group will set up one such building in Chennai. Branding of the serviced apartment is yet to be decided.

However Koshy says the return on investment is higher in a hotel project compared to a serviced apartment project.

Plans are there to set up a college to offer MBA in hospitality management near Chennai and the management is on the look out for 40-50 acre plot for the purpose.

In addition, a training school under the name GRT Hospitality Academy has been set up to train people for jobs in the hospitality sector. The academy will train bellboys and other entry level employees in various hotel operations thereby making them multi skilled.

GRT Hotels in association with a non-governmental agency (NGO) has also started offering training in cooking at Kanchipuram.