It’s everyday Indian life that makes Mumbai such a strong corporate incentive destination.
Mumbai offers the glamour of Bollywood cinema, shopping malls full of designer labels,
cricket on the Oval Maidan and red doubledecker buses queuing in grinding traffic jams.
It’s a city with vibrant streetlife, India’s best nightlife and a wealth of bazaars.
MODERN DESTINATION
The city has seen a new breed of Europeanstyle coffee shops, stylish restaurants and
cocktail bars, like Indigo, voted one of the world’s top 60 restaurants by Condé Nast Traveller, and Bed Lounge and Bar in the wealthy suburb of Bandra.
Bed is just the latest in a long line of hip venues listed in the recently launched Time Out Mumbai magazine, itself another sign of the direction the city is heading.
Today the city continues to draw fortuneseekers from all over India and both national and international organisations are opening headquarter offices here. The city already has a population density four times greater than New York City’s, and is on target for a population of 28 million by 2015.
RATE INCREASES
Mumbai has been named one of the most rapidly growing hotel markets in the world, according to a new survey.
Hotel rates in the city have jumped by 37 per cent in a year, according to figures released by travel management company the Hogg Robinson Group (HRG).
The company’s clients paid an average of US$313 to stay in the Indian city in 2007, up from US$228 in 2006, according to its figures.
The leap makes Mumbai the seventh most expensive city in the world for hotel rooms, beaten only by Moscow, New York, Paris, Dubai, Milan and Stockholm.
The rising rates have been fuelled by a limited supply of upper-end hotels, needed to meet the demand from growth in the banking, finance and IT sectors, according to HRG. Over the next two years it is estimated that 70,000 to 80,000 rooms will be built in India.
Additionally, Emaar MGF, DLF, The Claridges Hotels and Resorts and InterContinental Hotels Group
have all announced plans to open hotels across the country in the next three to five years.
ACCESS BOOM
India’s ‘open skies’ policy and an expansion in capacity at Mumbai’s international airport have also led to increased traffic into the region. India’s domestic carrier, Jet Airways, is starting to shake up the market.
Other carriers include Kingfisher Air, Air Deccan, Air Sahara, state-owned Indian Airlines as well as India’s answer to Easyjet, Spice Jet, which was launched last May.
TIME FOR MUMBAI
India's most cosmopolitan city has long been a favourite destination for tourists and now the regional corporate sector is beginning to discover its potential. By Kate Nicholson
