Is Chennai an expensive city to travel to for a short break? A survey by Tripindex Cities of TripAdvisor, a popular travel site, seems to say it is.
A survey of nine cities in the country found Chennai the second-most expensive after Mumbai. Kolkata and Bengaluru came after Chennai, and Chandigarh was the most budget-friendly city, the survey found. It took into account costs for lunch, dinner, taxi fares and four-star hotel rates for three nights during the summer travel months of June to August for two persons.
What is interesting is where in Chennai prices get pushed up: food. As per the survey, Chennai is the most expensive of the cities for dinner and a bottle of wine for two and the second-most expensive for lunch and soft drinks for two.
When in comes to hotel room rates though, Chennai is sixth on the list of nine cities, making it much cheaper than Mumbai, Bengaluru and New Delhi.
“I don’t think Chennai is more expensive than Mumbai to eat out in. But one of the problems here is the high cost of sourcing raw materials. For instance, I get my paneer from Mumbai and my lamb from Hyderabad, simply because the quality I want in these products is not available here. This does drive up the cost of good food. Even my spices are sourced from other cities, and the cost of all of this has to be made up,” said M. Mahadevan, chairman and managing director, Oriental Cuisine.
Another factor that could shoot the costs up is the wine factored in the survey: with higher taxes on alcohol, the meal would probably turn out to be more expensive, said Mr. Mahadevan.
Eating out in Chennai costs about as much as it does in Bengaluru and cafes in Mumbai are similarly priced, said Doc Waz, author of popular food blog, Chennai Foody. “But I keep hearing that alcohol here is much more expensive!” he said.
With power, payroll and raw material costs all much higher than they used to be, eating out is getting more expensive in Chennai, said T. Natarajan, secretary, South India Hotels and Restaurants Association. “If volumes are high, then prices can be reduced, but the problem is, except on weekends, volumes are simply not that high in Chennai. The culture of eating out is developing, but is still not as widespread as it is in, say Mumabi or Bengaluru,” he said.
Hotel rates, though, are on the low side. Experts have attributed the drop in prices to an oversupply of rooms in the city. For instance, at Turyaa Chennai, a new luxury hotel opening in Kottivakkam, Rajiv Gandhi Salai, an average occupancy rate of only 35 to 40 per cent is expected initially, even with competitive prices, as supply has outstripped demand.
So if Chennai is expensive, where do you go on your next short break? Jaipur maybe, as it has the cheapest hotel rates, the survey says.
India TripIndex Cities:
City | Lunch & soft drinks for two (per day) | Dinner & bottle of wine for two (per day) | Taxi (2 mile round trip) (per day) | Hotel room rate(per night) | Total (three days) |
Mumbai | 1,330 | 3,975 | 316 | 7,697.3 | 39956 |
New Delhi | 511 | 3,270 | 136 | 4,494 | 25233 |
Kolkata | 536 | 2,997 | 147 | 5,387 | 27200 |
Jaipur | 566 | 3,754 | 51 | 3,550 | 23763 |
Bengaluru | 463 | 2,841 | 147 | 5,173 | 25871 |
Chennai | 935 | 4,480 | 155 | 4221 | 29372 |
Chandigarh | 488 | 2,044 | 50 | 4701 | 21849 |
Pune | 607 | 3,527 | 152 | 4215 | 25503 |
Hyderabad | 565 | 3,355 | 147 | 4074 | 24423 |
*the figures above have been rounded off.
Source: India Tripindex Cities 2015
*The TripIndex Cities 2015 destination list is comprised of 9 key cities in India
*TripIndex Cities prices out the daily cost for the following items in each destination, multiplied by three to represent the cost of a three-day city break for two people:
Lunch: Meal and soft drink
Dinner: Starter, main meal and bottle of wine to share
Taxi: Return taxi journey of two miles each way
Hotel: Accommodation in a 4-4.5 star hotel
*Prices in each market were taken between 15 May 2015 and 30 May 2015.
*Room rates specify the average cost of one night’s stay in 4 and 4.5 star hotels in each destination between 15 June – 31 August 2015
