Hotels cash in on Vadodara’s half-marathon fever

While Vadodara prepares to run Sunday's Vadodara international half marathon, the city hotels have already run a full marathon as far as moolah is concerned. In terms of registration, the half marathon has not only broken previous year's records but has also created a world record this time with the highest number of participants.

Interestingly, with thousands of people pouring in the city for participating in marathon, the economy of the city is looking up. While the hotel rooms of the city are already packed, the taxis, auto rickshaws and flights to Vadodara is pumping money to the city's economy.

With around 41,500 registrations done till Saturday evening, the event has 216 international participants from seven countries and thousands from different parts of India. One of the directors of Vadodara marathon, Amit Bhatnagar said, "Presently, we have more than 4,800 people from outside the city staying in hotels, so people are finding it difficult to find rooms now." Every hotel or guest house is full with people geared up for half marathon. Some hotels have already doubled the rates for customers looking at the huge number of people pouring in the city.

Surprisingly, many hotels had witnessed advanced bookings and enquiries since last week. Hotelier Vaibhavi Gandhi of Express Hotels said, "We are witnessing lot of rush by people in our hotel for rooms. Nearly, all rooms are occupied now. Since last one week, we started receiving enquiries from people from out of the state."