Restaurant Owners are struggling to keep their business afloat in Whitefield as the IT parks have still not opened.
Bengaluru: Nearly 30 to 40 percent high end restaurants are still closed in Whitefield area because the business is dependent on the IT sector and IT parks have still not started operating at 100 percent capacity.
According to Madhukar Shetty, Secretary, Hotels Association of Karnataka, “The hotel industry in Whitefield area is heavily dependent on IT sector and because the offices have been closed the workers have left Bangalore and are working from home. And due to this the footfall of customers decreased and the pandemic forced these owners to shut shops for nearly 2 years.”
Sid Marthalli, who is the owner of BlueVelvette hotel says that he and his partners invested around 20 crores in their hotel before the pandemic and opened the hotel in January 2020 but were forced to shut shop in March due to the pandemic. Currently he is in a lot of debt to the bank as the interest keeps piling on and there is no source of income for him to pay the EMIs to the bank.
He also says that he had to lay off his employees because he couldn’t afford to give them their basic salaries. So, the hotels and restaurants are still not getting the expected footfall despite the holidays and festive Season.
