BRICS squeeze: Delhi’s luxury hotels sell out as room rates soar ahead of September summit

Delhi’s luxury hotel market is facing a sharp squeeze ahead of the BRICS Summit, with several of the capital’s marquee properties showing no availability for key dates around September 11-13, while rooms that remain available are commanding tariffs of more than Rs 1 lakh a night.

The pressure is being driven by the arrival of heads of state, government delegations, officials, business representatives, support teams and international visitors for the September 12-13 summit at Bharat Mandapam. A check of hotel booking platforms showed no availability at the Taj Mahal Hotel and Taj Palace for parts of the summit period, while The Oberoi, New Delhi, was sold out for portions of the dates. The Leela Palace New Delhi was also not accepting bookings for the specified dates.

The squeeze is spreading beyond the traditional luxury segment as visitors look for branded alternatives across Delhi-NCR. The two-day summit is effectively compressing demand across several days, with delegations and other visitors arriving ahead of the event and extending their stays.

Rooms disappear, tariffs climb

With inventory tightening, prices have moved sharply upwards. At ITC Maurya, a booking check showed September 12 rates ranging from about Rs 70,000 to Rs 2.55 lakh, depending on the room category and booking plan. At Shangri-La Eros, rates for September 12 were around Rs 1,21,800 to Rs 1,50,500.

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At the Taj Mahal Hotel, September 10 rates were reported from about Rs 71,400 to as much as Rs 14.45 lakh for the most expensive option. Taj Palace was quoting roughly Rs 72,000 to Rs 1.53 lakh for September 10.

The Oberoi New Delhi had no rooms available for September 11-12 in the booking check, while The Imperial had no availability for September 10-13, and Le Méridien showed no availability for September 12.

The sharp escalation reflects a basic demand-supply imbalance: a large volume of international demand is converging on a relatively small pool of premium rooms over the same few days.

LaLiT sees a sold-out position

The LaLiT New Delhi, located around 3 km from Bharat Mandapam, is among the hotels preparing for international business and official delegations.

Vishal Sharma, General Manager of The LaLiT New Delhi, said the hotel is looking at a sold-out position and is preparing for delegations connected with countries including Russia, China, the UAE, South Africa, Burundi and Belarus. The preparations go well beyond filling rooms.

The hotel is redesigning its breakfast offering to include dishes associated with participating countries and is planning country-specific touches in in-room dining and guest amenities. Special branding and presentation elements are also being incorporated for visiting delegations.

At the same time, the hotel is looking to showcase Indian hospitality. Its Baluchi restaurant and Indian cuisine offerings are being positioned as part of that experience, while an Indian section in the in-room dining menu will allow international guests to sample dishes such as butter chicken, mutton Rogan Josh, dum aloo and rajma.

For hotels handling VIP and official delegations, the operational challenge extends to room allocation, housekeeping, guest movement, transport coordination, food service and security protocols, while maintaining normal operations for other guests.

Ramada sees demand spill into Delhi-NCR

The demand surge is also being felt beyond the core luxury cluster in central Delhi, highlighting how the summit is pushing visitors into branded midscale and upscale properties across the wider NCR market.

Rahool Macarius, Market Managing Director, Eurasia, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, said the summit was creating a distinct demand dynamic for Delhi-NCR, with location playing an important role in how the additional demand was translating into bookings.

“At Ramada Encore by Wyndham Dwarka Expressway, this event-led demand is reflected in occupancy for September 12-15, currently tracking at 65%, significantly ahead of the broader market demand,” Macarius said.

He said Wyndham was also seeing members of its Wyndham Rewards loyalty programme travelling to Delhi for the summit, pointing to the growing role of branded accommodation and established loyalty ecosystems in influencing booking decisions.

Macarius said the event was reflecting a broader preference for branded midscale and upscale accommodation, along with rising expectations around convenience, flexibility and seamless end-to-end arrangements.

“At Wyndham, we are closely tracking demand in real time and remain responsive to evolving booking patterns, while ensuring our properties are operationally prepared to deliver a seamless and consistent experience for both domestic and international visitors,” he said.

The company’s ability to respond dynamically to demand, he added, was becoming increasingly important as booking patterns changed closer to the summit.

The Ramada Encore occupancy figure also underlines an important shift in the Delhi hotel market: the BRICS effect is not confined to the handful of five-star hotels closest to the diplomatic and government district. As central inventory tightens, demand is spilling into other branded properties where location, connectivity and reliability become key considerations.

Hotels prepare for more than a room rush

The preparation for the summit is therefore becoming a wider operational exercise.

Hotels are having to manage guest screening and security coordination, VIP arrival and departure protocols, transport schedules, housekeeping and service staffing, food and beverage requirements, room allocation and delegation-specific guest preferences.

Security arrangements are also being intensified around designated hotels hosting visiting dignitaries and delegates. The city’s traffic authorities have prepared elaborate movement plans for foreign delegations and heads of state, with restrictions expected around key routes from September 10 as visitors begin arriving. Nearly 4,800 traffic personnel are expected to be deployed across the city.

Delhi’s wider preparations are also focused on the hotels themselves. Ten hotels in Lutyens’ Delhi have been identified among the properties set to host delegates, while civic agencies are stepping up cleanliness, landscaping, lighting and other public infrastructure around key areas.

For hotels, this creates a more demanding operating environment in which the guest experience has to be maintained while security, transport and access protocols become considerably tighter.

Demand-supply gap comes into focus

Vishal Sharma also pointed to the larger structural issue facing Delhi-NCR hospitality: demand generated by major international events is often not matched by corresponding room supply.

He said events such as BRICS, India-Africa summits and C20 have demonstrated how quickly room requirements can outstrip available inventory, with Delhi likely to see significant hotel additions over the next four to five years.

The current squeeze is consequently more than a temporary pricing story. It exposes the limited depth of Delhi’s branded hotel inventory at precisely the moment India is seeking to establish itself as a major destination for global meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions.

K.B. Kachru, President of the Hotel Association of India and Chairman – South Asia at Radisson Hotel Group, said the BRICS Summit was highlighting the mismatch between India’s ambitions as a global tourism and MICE destination and its existing hospitality infrastructure.

“India is commanding global attention at a defining moment — as the nation prepares to host marquee international events and cements its position as a premier MICE destination, the world is watching how we scale to meet our tourism targets,” Kachru said.

“The BRICS Summit alone will put considerable focus on room inventory and that spotlight is exposing a hard truth: our hospitality infrastructure has not kept pace with our tourism ambition.”

Industry data suggests the issue extends well beyond Delhi. India currently has roughly 200,000-220,000 branded hotel rooms, while the industry is pushing for faster development of new properties as demand for organised accommodation grows. The Hotel Association of India has also called for faster clearances, single-window approvals and policy measures to accelerate hotel development.

A windfall and a warning

For Delhi hotels, the BRICS Summit presents an immediate commercial windfall. Premium demand is pushing tariffs sharply higher, while sold-out properties have effectively taken large chunks of central Delhi’s room inventory off the market.

But the inability to find rooms even at sharply elevated prices is also a warning.

The immediate shortage demonstrates how vulnerable the capital can become when a large international event compresses demand into a narrow window. The pressure is now visible across the hospitality chain—from luxury suites running into lakhs of rupees to branded midscale properties in the NCR seeing elevated occupancy.

For an industry preparing for more international conferences, diplomatic gatherings and large-scale MICE events, the bigger question is whether India can add enough quality room inventory quickly enough.

BRICS may deliver a short-term revenue surge for Delhi’s hotels. But it is also turning the capital’s hotel room shortage into a very visible test of whether its hospitality infrastructure can keep pace with India’s ambitions as a global events destination.