Mirah group plans to unveil a chain of 16 hotels in India under the brand Citrus Hotel in the next three years. The company would be investing Rs 600 crore in the project.

Last week, it launched its first 5-star hotel with 110 keys and 40 service apartments in Pimpri-Chinchwad, the second largest industrial hub in Maharashtra.

“We will invest Rs 200 crore in the first phase in the first 5-star Citrus Hotel and five more planned in Goa, Allepey, Ch­ennai, Lonavala and Maha­baleshwar,” Citrus Hotels CEO Ram Nidhi Wasan told FC Estate.

The company has already invested Rs 100 crore in the Pimpri-Chinchwad property. The money has been raised through internal accruals and bank borrowings, he said.

The Rs 1,500 crore Mirah group, with interests in real estate, international trading, textile and wind energy generation, also runs 45 Rajdhani vegetarian thali restaurants.

Wasan said these five hotels would be up and running in the first quarter of the next financial year. The six Citrus hotels will have a total of 450 keys, he said. In the next three years, the Mirah group plans to expand its footprint to 10 cities. Ten hotels would be set up in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and other tourist destinations, said Wasan. When fully operational, the Citrus Hotel chain would have over 1,000 keys.

He said the tariff at the Pimpri-Chinchwad hotel was Rs 500 per room per day at present. But the group’s published tariff would be Rs 7,000.

“The hospitality industry is growing rapidly and we want to expand,” Wasan said. “We are banking on smart and stylish delivery of hospitality values to our clients,” he said.

According to the tourism department, 70 per cent of hotel guests were domestic travellers, said Gaurav Goenka, director, Mirah group and Citrus Hotels. “If trends are to be believed, domestic demand from business travellers and tourists is expected to increase by 15 per cent to 20 per cent per annum over the next five years,” he said.

Suresh Talera, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Ass­ociation, Western India, said, there has been an upswing in occupancy rates in major metros, hovering around 55 per cent to 65 per cent since last September primarily due the business traveller segment.

“It is likely to improve further in the subsequent quarters with occupancy likely to touch 75 per cent by the end of 2010 and RevPar (revenue per available room) could go up by 9 per cent,” he said.