Calcutta, July 9: The Ambuja Neotia group is expanding its presence in the fine dining and hospitality business in Bengal. It has earmarked an investment of around Rs 60 crore to set up restaurants and boutique hotels.

The company is planning to renovate Swabhumi by adding banquets, restaurants and a 33-room hotel. It is also looking to utilise the rooftop and top floors of the business tower Ecocentre at Sector V, Salt Lake, for a boutique hotel with allied facilities. A restaurant under the Sonar Tori brand is also in the pipeline.

"The hotel at Swabhumi will be inspired by the architecture of Bengal and is likely to come up by the middle of next year," said Nitin Kohli, business head, Neotia Hospitality.

He added that the other two expansions would take shape by the end of December.

Kohli said the hospitality industry in Bengal and the eastern region had seen changes in the past five years. Consumer perception, demand and industry standards have changed. This has prompted several franchise players to explore business opportunities in Bengal.

"The east is finally seeing national franchise players in casual smart dine formats coming in and finding the market attractive. The Riyaaz Amlanis, AD Singhs and Zoravar Kalras are all looking at opening their franchise outlets in Calcutta. Once Quest opened, we saw Yauatcha and the likes coming in, which the consumers of Calcutta experienced for the first time. It has opened the way for many more such brands to want to come into the city and explore the market here," he said. Growth in domestic tourism has also helped the hospitality sector.

But the restaurant business run in a franchise model could be hit by owner-operator challenges. "Rising rents are making restaurants unviable and malls today often do not consider restaurants to be an anchor store, giving owners little negotiating bandwidth," said Kohli.

Ambuja Neotia's hospitality business has seen steady growth of 20 per cent across most sectors. "Although we saw downward revenue for a month in November 2016 because of demonetisation, business has bounced back in December," said Kohli.