Oberoi to open hotels in Vizag, Tirupati: Minister

Vijayawada: TOURISM Minister Muttamsetti Srinivas Rao said the Oberoi Group has come forward to invest in setting up five and seven star hotels in Visakhapatnam and Tirupati.

Stating that tourism was being developed in a big way, he told reporters that tenders have been called for developing Rushikonda in Visakhapatnam as a Bluebay Hotel with Rs 164 crore, to make the State find it's due place in the world tourism map. He said the government was planning several star hotels in all the 13 districts under public, private partnership mode. He said the Tourism Department has sustained enough even after falling short of revenue during Covid-19 crisis.

The Minister said that proposals are still on to set up a floating restaurant in Visakhapatnam by using the ship that came from Bangladesh and ran aground near a park under the influence of cyclone. Rao said there are 38 restaurants run by the Tourism Department. During the lockdown, all these restaurants supplied food to Covid centres and earned a revenue of Rs 58 crore in the last financial year and Rs 28 crore in the ongoing financial year, he said and informed that the government did not resort to laying off any of the 1138 employees.