Lemon Tree to invest Rs 850 crore on capex in three years

Lemon Tree Hotels Ltd announced it will be investing Rs 850 crore in the next three years for expanding its footprint in the country. The company has earmarked a total of Rs 1,700 crore for adding 1,500 rooms, which are currently under construction and expected to be completed by financial year 2021 and spent half of the total budget.

“The total capital that will be deployed in these 1,500 rooms will about Rs 1,700 crore. Of this roughly half of it has already been deployed and another half of it will be deployed near completion by FY21. All the 1500 rooms will be available by FY21,” said Vikramjit Singh, President of Lemon Tree Hotels.

The mid-priced hotel chain presently operates 4,907 rooms in 49 hotels including managed ones across 31 cities and aims to operate 78 hotels with 8,152 rooms in 54 cities by 2020-21, he added. Around 64 per cent of Lemon Tree’s rooms are company-owned, while the rest are owned by others and managed by the company. It also plans to gradually reduce the proportion of hotels it owns and focus more on managing hotels under its brand.