The LPG crisis stemming from the conflict in West Asia has caught the hotel industry in Kerala unawares, with several establishments rolling down the shutters and forcing jobless migrant labourers from Assam and Bengal to return to their home states.

Kerala’s hotel industry depends on labourers from Bengal and the Northeast, especially Assam. A section of these workers had left Kerala during the SIR in Bengal and the special revision of electoral rolls in Assam.

Both states will go to the polls next month.

Job losses fuelled by an acute LPG crisis have led to the exodus of the remaining labourers engaged by the hotel industry. The cost of commercial cylinders has skyrocketed to ₹3,500 from ₹1,800 in Kerala. Some owners have tried running their hotels by switching to firewood, but it has proved financially unviable, too.

G. Jayapal, president of Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association, told The Telegraph that he had to shut down his 25-year-old Hotel Indraprastha at Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district on March 9, the beginning of the gas cylinder crisis.

“My business had already been affected by the exodus of guest labourers returning to their home states over issues related to the SIR. At present, my hotel is undergoing renovation and maintenance. The work is happening at a snail’s pace because there is no urgency. I don’t know when the LPG crisis will resolve. The Covid-19 pandemic was the only time my hotel was shut for this long,” he said.

Lots of hotels in the state have hiked prices. At some joints, tea and coffee prices have been increased by ₹2-10.

Chef Satheesh Janardhanan of Biriyani Castle in Thiruvananthapuram said he had fashioned a makeshift stove with bricks that run on firewood behind his restaurant. Pointing to a pile of firewood stacked at his shed, Satheesh said it cost him ₹5,000.

“This stock will hardly last three days. One kilo of firewood costs ₹15, which is just a small log. I can’t pass on the cost burden to my customers, so I have curtailed my menu. Now we are only offering biryani and chicken curry,” Satheesh said.

In Kannur and Malappuram, hotel owners have stopped preparing fried snacks and are instead selling fruits. The wayside eateries have also trimmed their menu and jacked up the price of paratha and beef/chicken, considered a staple among Kerala youths.