Roots Corporation (RCL), the owner of the Ginger brand of budget hotels, is exploring opportunities in setting up a hotel inside a mall. Talks are being held with some mall owners, Prabhat Pani, chief executive officer, said. RCL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Indian Hotels Company of the Tata Group.

Expanding its southern presence, it plans to set up one hotel each at Mangalore and Tirupur.

Pani told The Hindu that typically around 45,000 sq ft was required for housing a 100-room hotel and talks for acquiring space within a mall was in an active stage. He declined to divulge anything further.

An investment of about Rs 200 crore (without the cost of land) is proposed to be made by 2007-08 to bring the total number of Ginger hotels to 25 from 6.

While three of the existing hotels are in the south (at Bangalore, Mysore and Thiruvananthapuram), Mangalore and Puducherry are among the projects under implementation now.

"Work has also commenced in Goa and Agartala," Pani said.

MoU signed
West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is set to inaugurate in Durgapur the first Ginger hotel in West Bengal.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed with Bengal Pragati (a joint venture of WBIDC) for acquiring land for setting up another one at Rajarhat in Salt Lake, he said.