Five percent increase in all food, beverages from Apr. 10

Mysore/Mysuru: Come April 10, you might think twice before making a plan to eat out. With hotels and restaurants all set to increase their costs, it is bound to burn a hole in your pocket. The prices of eatables will be hiked by 5 percent from Apr. 10.

Hoteliers say massive hike in commercial Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders, increased cost of vegetable and pulses, high prices of edible oil coupled with high labour cost have all added to the burden of running the establishments. Even the trade licence fee collected by the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has increased.

“After two years of lockdown and other restrictions, we are running our businesses with very thin margins. However, the recent LPG cylinder hike has impacted us. An average restaurant needs a minimum of four LPG cylinders daily and it is impossible to sustain with such an increase in prices,” said Mysuru Hotel Owners Association President C. Narayanagowda.

Along with price increase, the hotel sector has been facing a massive labour shortage due to which they are forced to shell out more salaries to the existing staff. “We really don’t want to hike the price of the menus and burden the customers, but the prices of all essential commodities have increased from 25 to 40 percent and even the electricity charges are more. We are compelled to hike food and beverage prices,” he added.

The hike will come into effect at all categories of hotels. “Seeing the hikes of all commodities, a hike of 10 percent is inevitable but the Association has decided to increase food prices by 5 percent,” Narayanagowda said.