After receiving clearance from Delhi Police, Holiday Inn will be soon thrown open to the public. The hotel will add another 260 rooms to the Aerocity hospitality complex near the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport. The Delhi Police approval came four days ago and the hotel just has to cross a single hurdle of receiving clearance from the licensing Department to get operational. The other hotel property, Ibis, which had queued up to receive the requisite permissions, has been asked to improve its security infrastructure.
Delhi Police inspection committee has given security clearance to Holiday Inn. “The hotel has met the compliance norms in terms of access control, data preservation of the customers, monitoring and threat management system. It now needs to be cleared by the licensing Department before it is open. The committee, meanwhile, found a number of loopholes in the security infrastructure of the Ibis hotel, which need to be plugged. The runway facing rooms of the other three operational hotels will take time to open and will require permissions from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO),” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, IGI, Irshad Haider.
Three hotels of the expansive complex — JW Marriott, lemon Tree Premier and Red Fox were given partial clearance to open their doors to the public with restrictions on the runway facing rooms. Apart from these, seven remaining hotels are expected to queue up to get their premises cleared to open their doors to the public. In total, the 43-acre complex will add a massive 5,100 rooms to Delhi’s inventory.
JW Marriott, which was the first hotel to be thrown open to the public at the hospitality district, was given permission to operate 223 rooms out of the capacity of 523. “The other 200 rooms are expected to open within two to three weeks. Ninety per cent of the work on the security measures to be undertaken on the tarmac facing rooms is complete and thus the permissions to open these rooms are expected shortly,” said Balan Paravantavida, General Manager of the hotel.
Additionally, 145 rooms out of 280 in case of lemon Tree Premier and 191 rooms out of Red Fox’s 207 are available at present. The permissions on the tarmac facing rooms will be given once the Defence Research and Development Organisation gives a go-ahead on the standard of bulletproof glass panes. The two hotels are receiving good response from the tourists, especially the transit travellers. “Our hotels are witnessing a healthy mix of corporate and leisure business travellers. Being located five minutes away from both airports and not very far from Gurgaon and Delhi, business travellers prefer this location,” said a spokesperson for the lemon Tree Premier and Red Fox hotels.
Expounding on the security arrangements in these hotel premises, she said: “The security arrangements in the hotels include high end solutions like crash bollards and boom barriers at each entrance; under vehicle surveillance system; baggage X-ray scanners; back-to-back CCTV coverage of all public areas; fish eye cameras in the basements that provide a 360° view; face recognition analytical cameras; a comprehensive video wall in the security control room to monitor all coverage simultaneously; a 3D walkthrough; biometric access control for all back-of-the-house areas; intruder alarm system and panic buttons at key locations,” she said.
A special feature of the lemon Tree hotel is that it offers a very secure women’s wing where the hotel has ensured screening of telephone calls to these rooms as well as extra CCTV coverage, outside these rooms, as an added security measure.