Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar may need about 22,000 additional hotel rooms before they can accommodate the estimated requirements of the 2029 World Police and Fire Games and the 2030 Commonwealth Games, according to a CEPT University study. The finding points to a broader urban challenge: hosting large sporting events is not only a question of building venues, but also of expanding hospitality, airport accommodation, exhibition facilities and mobility infrastructure without creating underused assets after the events end.
The assessment, titled ‘Enabling Hospitality, Tourism, and Mobility Infrastructure for CWG in Ahmedabad’, was prepared by Harsh Shah, a student of CEPT University’s Master’s in Urban Housing programme, under the guidance of faculty members Sejal Patel and Amruta Patel, with TA Vidhi Mehta. It estimates that Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar currently have around 18,000 hotel rooms, compared with a requirement of nearly 40,000 rooms for the two major sporting events.
That gap is significant because accommodation capacity is distributed unevenly across categories and locations. The study identifies 3,694 rooms in 22 five-star hotels, 1,557 rooms in 24 four-star hotels, 790 rooms across 18 resorts and 620 rooms in 16 boutique hotels. It also identifies around 141 properties listed on Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms. The balance of the existing inventory is spread across three-star and lower-category hotels.
The figures also show why simply counting rooms may not be enough. The assessment focuses on the premium hospitality segment, defined as accommodation with an average daily rate of Rs 5,000 or more. Researchers estimated occupancy levels of 60% to 68% for five-star, four-star and boutique hotels. This suggests that the challenge is not limited to adding a headline number of rooms. Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar would need an accommodation network capable of serving different visitor profiles, price points and event-related demand patterns.
The study estimates substantial gaps across several parts of the hospitality system. It places the demand-supply gap at 65% for luxury hotels and 60% for budget hotels. The estimated gap is 70% for airport hospitality and as high as 90% for MICE facilities, covering meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions. These figures expand the issue beyond hotel construction. They indicate a need to plan accommodation alongside the facilities and transport connections that allow visitors, athletes, officials, workers and spectators to move through the twin-city region.
This is the institutional significance of the study. A major sporting event creates a concentrated demand spike, but the infrastructure built in response is likely to remain in the city for decades. Hotels, conference facilities and supporting urban services cannot be treated as temporary event equipment in the same way as some event-specific installations. Their financial viability and public value will depend on how they are used once the tournaments are over.
CEPT University Faculty of Management dean Sejal Patel cited previous international sporting events to illustrate how hosting can accelerate hotel capacity. She said Barcelona added about 300% to its hotel-room capacity in five years in preparation for the 1992 Olympics. She also said Doha added about 70,000 new beds in four years through a public-private partnership model for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Patel’s comparison also carries a warning embedded in the study’s approach: the objective should not be to add temporary infrastructure alone, but to plan for its future utilisation. For Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, that means the assessment of capacity cannot end with the 2030 event calendar. The urban question is whether new rooms and facilities can support tourism, business travel, conferences and local economic activity after the international sporting demand has disappeared.
The proposed financing mechanisms reflect the scale of the gap. The researchers have suggested greater use of public-private partnerships and innovative financing to expand hospitality infrastructure. Harsh Shah proposed a real estate investment trust modelled on Singapore’s hospitality trusts, with a dedicated sports hospitality REIT category that could be created by the Securities and Exchange Board of India to attract institutional capital over the next five years.
A REIT structure would, as proposed by the study, seek to connect hospitality assets with institutional investment rather than rely only on conventional project-level financing. However, the viability of such a model would depend on the quality of the underlying assets, expected occupancy, revenue performance and the regulatory framework. The supplied study identifies the financing concept, but does not establish whether a sports hospitality REIT category will be created or how it would be implemented.
The study also proposes using TDR-plus mechanisms in selected zones as an incentive. Transferable Development Rights can be used as a planning tool to influence where additional development capacity is created or transferred. In this case, Shah said TDR-plus mechanisms could be applied in some areas, alongside public-private partnerships for required hospitality infrastructure. The proposal places land-use regulation directly alongside finance as part of the capacity-building strategy.
That combination matters because hotel capacity is not a standalone real-estate product. Its usefulness depends on access to airports, event venues, roads and other urban services. The study’s separate estimates for airport hospitality and MICE facilities indicate that the city’s challenge is distributed across a connected system. A hotel room far from venues or transport links may add to the room count without adequately solving the operational needs of a major event.
The existing inventory also highlights the role of different accommodation formats. The twin cities have large premium properties, resorts and boutique hotels, as well as lower-category hotels and short-term rental listings. The 141 Airbnb and other short-term rental properties identified by the study show that event accommodation is not limited to formally classified hotels. At the same time, the material supplied does not establish how many additional short-term rental units could be created, how they would be regulated or how their capacity would be incorporated into official event planning.
The occupancy estimates provide another important planning signal. With researchers placing occupancy in five-star, four-star and boutique hotels at 60% to 68%, the region has an existing base of hospitality demand but also unused capacity at the time of assessment. That makes the proposed expansion more complex than a simple response to scarcity. New supply would have to be timed and structured so that it meets peak event requirements while remaining commercially and spatially useful in ordinary years.
The numbers reported by the study therefore describe two different pressures. The first is a short-to-medium-term capacity requirement: nearly 40,000 rooms compared with an existing inventory of around 18,000. The second is a long-term urban management requirement: ensuring that new hotels, facilities and supporting infrastructure continue to function after the events. The second pressure is harder to resolve because it involves demand beyond a fixed tournament schedule.
The 2029 and 2030 timelines give authorities and private investors several years to address the gap, but the source material does not provide a construction schedule, identified sites, approved projects or a formal government implementation plan. Nor does it establish whether the estimated requirement has been adopted by the event organisers or any public authority. Those limitations matter when converting a university assessment into an infrastructure programme.
What is clear from the study is that the hospitality requirement cannot be separated from the wider built environment. The proposed response involves developers, investors, regulators, local planning authorities, event organisers and transport agencies. It also requires decisions about where development should occur, what incentives should be offered, how projects should be financed and how new assets should be absorbed by the city after 2030.
For Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, the Commonwealth Games bid or hosting plan is therefore functioning as a test of institutional coordination. The room deficit is measurable, but the response will be judged by more than the number of keys delivered. The decisive question will be whether the twin cities can create hospitality and related urban infrastructure that meets event demand without leaving behind poorly used, financially stressed or disconnected assets.
The CEPT assessment establishes the scale of the reported gap and puts forward PPP, REIT and TDR-plus mechanisms as possible responses. The next developments to monitor are whether public authorities validate the estimates, identify projects and locations, create a financing framework, and publish an implementation timeline for accommodation, airport hospitality, MICE facilities and associated mobility infrastructure.
