The Park Hotels is Cutting Rooms to Add Ballrooms
Photo Credit: Poolside at The Park Chennai. The Park Hotels
Skift Take
In India’s big cities, hotels are increasingly being designed around ballrooms rather than beds. Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels’ decision to cut room count in Kolkata to expand banqueting and conference space shows how weddings and corporate events are becoming the primary drivers of profitability.
The latest Kolkata project by Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels is proof that meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) are no longer an add-on, but are central to the business model.
Speaking during the company’s recent earnings call, Managing Director Vijay Dewan revealed that the hotel component of the newly announced The Park at EM Bypass, Kolkata, has been deliberately redesigned to prioritize banqueting and conferencing over room inventory. The number of hotel rooms has been cut from an earlier plan of 250 to 218, with the freed-up space reallocated to large-format event infrastructure.
“Looking at the market, we have given more allocation to banqueting and conferencing facilities rather than just to the rooms,” Dewan said, calling the move a function of design and long-term planning. The decision is directly linked to Kolkata’s strong and sustained demand for weddings and corporate events, segments that consistently deliver higher margi
