Leela Group, Qatar firm sign agreement to build hotel near Taj Mahal

Doha: In an agreement entailing a foreign direct investment (FDI) of ₹ 500 crore in India, Qatar’s Al Sawari Holding on Sunday signed agreements with the Leela Group and Aiana Hotels and Resorts to build a twin hotel near the Taj Mahal monument in Agra.

The pacts for constructing the 250-room hotel in 30 months were signed on the sidelines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, shortly after he invited Qatari companies to invest in India.

The construction of the hotel in Agra will entail an FDI of about ₹ 500 crore, Leela Group chairman Vivek Nair told PTI after signing the pact with Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani, chairman of Al Sawari Holding and Al Faisal Holding.

“We will be developing a two-hotel complex with a total of 250 rooms,” said Amruda Nair, joint managing director and chief executive of Aiana Hotels and Resorts, who launched the brand Aiana in Qatar a year ago.

The hotel will be built under the brand name Aiana and will be the sixth such hotel in India, she said, adding it will be located just 1km from the Taj Mahal.

The 150-room Aiana Agra will be operated by Doha-based Aiana Hotels and Resorts while the Leela Group will operate the 100-room Leela Palace.

Vivek Nair said the project will entail 100% FDI. “Under this agreement, Al Sawari Group will purchase a 6-acre site from the Leela Group in the historical city of Agra to develop a hotel complex. Al Sawari Holding has also entered into a management agreement with the Leela Group to operate a 100-room Leela Palace hotel on this site,” a press statement issued later said.

“Another management agreement has been signed with Aiana Hotels and Resorts, a global hotel management company to operate the 150-room Aiana Hotel on the same plot,” it said.

Amruda said Sheikh Faisal is keen to support the brand with additional properties in other locations in Europe and Maldives.

Nair said Leela also plans to build a 60-room hotel in the prime minister’s Lok Sabha constituency in Varanasi in 24 months. “We have now gone into asset-like strategy. Developers come to us and say ‘please develop a hotel like Leela Palace or Leela Goa’. So, apart from Agra, we are setting up a hotel in Jaipur and a 1,000-acre property in Chandigarh—a 27-hole golf course and villas and a 150-room hotel,” said Nair.

“Internationally, we are just about to execute an agreement in Dubai with the royal family there for a hotel facing the Burj Khalifa. It will be 250-room hotel. Another hotel in business bay,” he said. “In January we will start operating a hotel in Maldives,” Nair said. PTI