Come 2012, the city fringes will boast another five-star address. India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) has joined hands with the Calcutta-based Shelter Group for a hotel near the Birati crossing, less than a kilometre from the airport.

The group, in its maiden venture into the hospitality industry, will provide three acres of land and foot the Rs 100-crore bill for the G+4, 220-room structure. ITDC will lend the brand name Ashok and operational and management expertise to the local partner. The revenue will be shared.

“Association with a brand like ITDC is giving us an easy entry into the industry. We will not have to bother about marketing or clients. We will reach the break-even point easily and that will help us make further inroads into the industry,” said Samar Nag, the managing director of Shelter Group.

“We had a five-star hotel in Calcutta — Airport Ashok — which was divested. The new project offers us an opportunity to resurrect ourselves in the city,” said Kuldip Verma, the senior vice-president of the corporate marketing and the human resource development divisions of ITDC.

Work on Shelter Ashok, which will have a swimming pool, a food court and other amenities, is likely to commence in February. Its interiors will showcase the folk culture of Bengal, said Anirban Bhaduri, the consultant architect of the project.

Earlier this month, ITDC signed memoranda of understanding for hotel projects of three to five-star categories in Malout (Punjab), Manesar (Haryana), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Jodhpur and Bhiwadi (Rajasthan) apart from the one in Calcutta.

“Two-three years later, Calcutta will need another 500 five-star rooms and 300 to 400 three or four-star rooms. In the past year, five five-star projects were shelved because of the downturn and the withdrawal of the Nano plant,” said Nitin Kothari, the vice-president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India and an executive committee member of the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India.