No sooner had the State’s hospitality industry begun to crawl back to some level of normalcy after travel restrictions and lockdowns were lifted, the unexpected heavy rains and floods poured water over post-Diwali business prospects for Chennai hotels.
While Deepawali is low season for room occupancies in the city hotels, it generally picks up after the festivities. But, the incessant rains and flooding in Chennai has by and large has delayed that schedule of business flow. The cancellation of domestic and international flights and train services had also truncated movement inbound traffic

T Nataraajan, CEO of GRT Hotels, hopes that things will change in the next few days, with weather conditions improving. “Rains have completely stopped and water has started draining up in most parts of the city. Flight services have also resumed to and from Chennai. Train services as well as inter-state bus services are also back to normal. We expect normal business to start latest by November 15,” he said.

“In general, people have stopped moving out for the last one week because of heavy rains and that itself has affected all sorts of businesses in the city,” says a senior official of the MGM Hotels. In the absence of banquets, conferences and corporate business in general, it was the FIT (free independent traveller) business which was keeping the hotel business alive in the city in the pandemic times. The hoteliers fear some contraction even in that business segment.
Holiday for FITs in Chennai is largely around the eight or nine beach resorts along the East Coast Road (ECR). The frequent weather alerts do not augur well for these resorts which thrive on FIT business, he says.

However, due to the heavy rains in the city, a lot of hotels and restaurants in the northern Chennai area have suffered huge losses due to flooding of low lying areas. “Areas from Egmore to Parrys Corner are the worst hit with flood water entering many restaurants and hospitality units,” says M Ravi, president of Chennai Hotels Association.

Even the low-lying areas in the main town are impacted badly in the floods and will take time even after the water recedes from those areas. “Power supply is not yet restored in many areas in the city and therefore business is only 20 percent for the last one week,” he added.