US hotels benefit from Indian Weddings! What are cost-effective alternate solutions?

A recent AP-Illinois Exchange story published by the Arlington Heights Daily Herald discusses one of the hottest topics that will follow in the coming months of summer. Indian weddings take place mostly during summer and US hotels make big bucks out of it!

Indian weddings in the US generally have 400 or more guests and cost at minimum $250,000. These numbers are as specified by the Indian Wedding Magazine. These guests have to be accommodated and since most Indian families in the US have settled in urbanized localities they have nowhere else to go to other than hotels which make a huge profit during this season.  

The business is so lucrative that hotels are now hiring people who teach them on how to embrace and respect the Indian traditions to help the hotel staff be more hospitable to their Indian customers. Seema Jain, the multicultural affairs director for Marriott International held a demonstration event for their staff and admitted that if hotels are culturally competent they will get a major chunk of business. Weddings are extremely sensitive to the Indian community and parents start saving for their kid’s wedding right from birth!

Cities like Chicago which has the second largest Indian population in the US are acting quickly to make good use of the wedding season. For Indians, this trend comes as a blessing in disguise since weddings no longer are a chore to organize thanks to the wedding organizers in the region and also now the hotels being culturally open to Indians.

Indian weddings stretch for days together starting with a Mendhi function that has games, dance, music, and festivities that are similar to an Indian event. Women are given henna tattoos by the host. These tattoo artist can be found online too! This is followed by the Sangeet which is the wedding eve celebration and dinner which is attended by both the families (more like the rehearsal dinner of the west).

The wedding itself has a number of mini-events and it sure is a treat to be part of!