What is Ginger? We it's a smart hotel. Also called a budget hotel. Named Ginger. The operative word is ginger and this is a place where you handle your money gingerly.
Whose budget are we talking about?
Both yours and the hotel's. If budget means cheap, it is because a budget rate basically stems from a careful estimate or allotment of funds by the hotel. But a true budget hotel should simply provide more than is expected for the fee charged. And that is what Ginger hotels are all about.
Why are we writing about it?
Ginger is brought to you by Roots Corporation, which is a fully owned subsidiary of The Indian Hotels Company. The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), part of the Tata Group, is India's largest hotel chain with more than 70 properties in India.
Roots launched Ginger, a new brand under a category called Smart Basic hotels. The first hotel was in Whitefield, Bangalore, commissioned in June 2004.
What is in it for you?
Priced at Rs 999 for a single room and Rs 1,199 for a double room, Ginger hotels have created a new category in the domestic hospitality landscape.
The Ginger hotels are modular and scaleable and these hotels have 100-200 well-appointed rooms, with a choice of single, twin and queen-sized rooms.
The rooms are individually air-conditioned and equipped with electronic locks, an ergonomic work area, a 17-inch flat screen colour television with satellite channels, direct-dial telephone including STD facility, mini-fridge, tea/coffee maker, 24 hours hot/cold water and toiletries.
Other guest facilities at these hotels would include a restaurant, meeting room, gymnasium facilities, a cyber café, 24-hour reception, automatic check-in kiosk, digital safe deposit boxes, 100 per cent power back-up, as well as wi-fi connectivity in the public areas and individual rooms. Did we hear budget somewhere?
What are the damages?
Do you mind self-checking in, when you are getting the best possible rates in the city for a nice and clean room? At the lobby you check in at automated check-in kiosks, introduced for the first time in a hotel in India.
Ginger hotels are now open at Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Durgapur, Haridwar, Mysore, Pune and Thiruvananthapuram. You have to feel "at home" to give your laundry before 9.30 in the morning, so that you can collect it after 7.30 the same day.
Take it or leave it?
It's more than worth the money. Take it.
© 2025