MUMBAI: On Wednesday, the Oberoi Hotel, one of two five-star hotel complexes attacked by 10 Pakistan-based gunmen in November 2008, will welcome its first guests after a comprehensive $45 million reconstruction.
The lobby, which had been ravaged by gunshots and grenade blasts during the three-day siege, has been rebuilt with milky-white marble from the Greek island of Thassos. The already luxurious guestroom baths have been upgraded to include flat-screen televisions. Dozens of security guards watch the premises. And the Tiffin restaurant, where many guests and employees were killed in the terrorist attack, is now called Fenix.
The rebirth of the Oberoi — along with the expected return to full service of the other hotel attacked, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower — is an important milestone for Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay. The brazen strike, in which 163 people died, dealt India and Mumbai a significant psychic and economic blow, and recovery has come slowly.
Like the rest of the world, India's economy slowed sharply at the end of 2008 because of the global financial crisis. But the attacks compounded the damage here by shaking the confidence of investors, corporate executives and consumers.
In the last nine months, however, government stimulus and strong domestic consumer demand have helped revive the economy. India is still some way from the heady 9 percent growth rate of 2007, but the government is projecting 8 percent growth for the 2010-11 fiscal year, up from 7.2 percent last year.
Tourism and travel are also rebounding. In the first quarter, India had 1.56 million foreign tourists, up 13 percent from the first three months of 2009 and just shy of the 1.6 million that showed up in the same period in 2008, according to the Tourism Ministry.
Domestic and foreign hotel companies are adding rooms at a breakneck pace. For instance, Hyatt Hotels, the chain based in Chicago which currently has five hotels in India, plans to open 20 more properties in the country in the next four to five years.
The Oberoi, which formally reopens on Saturday, and the Taj are the last of the sites affected by the 2008 attacks to return to something resembling normal operations. The Taj, part of which is usable now, is expected to open guest rooms in its century-old palace wing soon, although the hotel has not provided an exact date.
Crushing as the attacks were for the rest of India, they were devastating for the two hotels — widely considered among the finest in the city — and the companies that own them.
The Mumbai Oberoi, for instance, accounted for about one-fifth of the revenue of the chain before the attacks. The earnings of East India Hotels, the publicly listed company that operates the hotels, fell nearly 70 percent in the nine months ended in December, compared to the same period a year earlier.
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