If you are a bubble bath lover, then before you book your room in a star hotel just make sure they still have the bathtub, because many hotel companies are doing away with the bathtub in their new properties due to growing water crisis and guest apathy.
Big chains like the Holiday Inn, Marriott, Lemon Tree, The Fern, Park Inn by Radisson and Best Western are setting the trend in their new star hotels, while many others, including The Leela Hotels, are considering the idea at least for standard rooms.
Doing away with the bathtub helps hotels save space as well. For instance, if a fivestar hotel is being constructed at a total cost of Rs 400 crore, the owner can reduce the overall costs by 5%, or about Rs 20 crore, by not installing bathtubs.
The 200-room Park Inn by Radisson, which is being built in Gurgaon, for instance, will not have bathtubs, saving the hotel 16 sq ft of space per room. "And we save a whole lot of water too, which is becoming an ever precious resource," says KB Kachru, president, South Asia operations, at Carlson Hotels, which runs the Radisson brand in India.
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Carlson plans to open 49 new Park Inn by Radisson hotels in north India. Many of them will not have bathtubs. "But rooms in leisure destinations still need to have the bathtub," Kachru says. The JW Marriott and the Renaissance Convention Centre Hotel in Mumbai, which underwent a renovation recently, removed bathtubs from 75% of their rooms.
At Lemon Tree Hotels, which runs Lemon Tree and Red Fox Hotels, 85% of the hotel inventory do not have bathtubs, says Aradhana Lal, vice-president, sustainability initiatives, at the hotel group.