Calcutta, April 24: Sarovar Hotels and Resort is planning to bolster its presence in eastern India with four new hotels.

The hotels are slated to come up in Guwahati, Tezpur (Assam), Bhubaneswar, and Raniganj (Bengal). These will take the group’s total hotel count in the region to eight. The others are located in Durgapur, Gangtok, Calcutta and Siliguri.

The Mumbai-based hotel management company franchises and markets more than 50 hotels both in India and abroad and operates under the brands — Premiere and Park Plaza (upscale), Portico and Park Inn (mid-market), and Hometel (economy). Park Plaza and Park Inn are operated in India under the master franchise of Carlson Hotels.

The new hotels will entail a mixture of all of their brands.

“The overall growth of the hotel industry is 8 per cent in India and there is a strong demand in the Northeast and eastern part. This prompted us to consider expanding our presence there. The hotels will become operational within the next two years,” said Ajay Bakaya, executive director of Sarovar Hotels and Resorts.

Bakaya is upbeat regarding the strong infrastructure that is set to come up in the region. “Infrastructure development is critical for the growth of our business in the region,” said Bakaya. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan has allocated Rs 4.5 billion for the development of the Northeast region.

The four hotels taken together involve an investment of around Rs 150 crore and the funding is mostly through a mixture of debt and equity. “Like all our investments, these projects are also a combination of debt and equity in the ratio of 2:3,” said Bakaya.

Within 2012, the company plans to expand its portfolio to include 100 hotels and a room inventory of 100,000.