As New Delhi braces to host the India AI Summit next week, the event has already triggered an extraordinary spike in room tariffs. Consumers have reported prices running into several lakhs per night, with some luxury suites allegedly being quoted as high as ₹20 lakh a night in the capital. A new survey by LocalCircles shows deep consumer frustration over unchecked profiteering during major events and a strong push for government intervention.
Even standard accommodation has not been spared, the survey says. Five-star hotels in central Delhi are charging upwards of ₹60,000 a night, while four-star properties that typically cost about ₹6,000 are listing rooms at more than ₹30,000. The pattern, the report notes, is far from new.
Similar complaints surfaced last year around Coldplay’s concerts in Navi Mumbai, where hotels near DY Patil Stadium reportedly charged up to ₹5 lakh for a three-night stay. Cricket World Cup matches in 2023 also saw room rates surge three to five times above normal levels. According to LocalCircles, any international event in India now appears to trigger sharp price escalation, with no upper limit and little consumer protection.
To understand the scale of the issue, LocalCircles conducted a nationwide survey over the past 15 months, gathering responses from more than 34,000 consumers across 307 districts. The results point to a systemic problem rather than isolated incidents.
About 57% of respondents say they had faced at least one instance of exorbitant hotel pricing over the past three years. A significant share reported paying inflated rates repeatedly, while only 38% said they had not encountered such pricing at all during the period surveyed.
The anger has translated into a clear demand for regulation. As many as 71% of respondents say India should introduce a ceiling on hotel room rates, preferably linked to a hotel’s own base or rack rate. Nearly half of those surveyed favoured a cap that would limit prices to no more than two times the regular rate, even during peak demand periods.
"Though the hoteliers lobby would prefer a free market and competition to help fix the room tariff, consumers don’t share the same view with 74% of respondents indicating that they are in favour of a government body being appointed to resolve complaints related to profiteering by hotels," LocalCircles says.
Calls for oversight are even stronger when respondents were asked about enforcement. Around 74% said a government body should be appointed to address complaints related to hotel profiteering. Among them, the largest group supported the creation of a dedicated regulator under the ministry of tourism, while others favoured monitoring by the competition commission of India (CCI) or the central consumer protection authority (CCPA).
The report highlights a regulatory vacuum. While the hospitality sector plays a vital role in tourism, employment and urban economies, India currently has no mechanism to prevent extreme price surges during high-demand events. The absence of clear rules, LocalCircles argues, has allowed pricing practices that leave consumers with little choice but to pay up or stay away.
It says, "Given the important role played by the hospitality industry in the economy, particularly job creation and promotion of tourism, the government needs to play a more proactive role to ensure both the industry and tourists don’t suffer. While hotels need to be profitable, they also need to provide good service at reasonable rates for the tourists and business visitors."
LocalCircles says it plans to share the survey findings with policymakers, urging the government to frame a balanced policy that allows hotels to remain profitable while protecting travellers from what consumers increasingly view as opportunistic pricing.
As India hosts more global summits, concerts and sporting events, the debate over whether hotel tariffs should remain entirely market-driven or subject to basic guardrails is likely to intensify.
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