India AI Impact Summit 2026: Luxury Hotel Room Prices Soar to Several Lakhs Per Night in Delhi

If you’re trying to book a five-star hotel room in Delhi next week, be prepared for a shock. As the capital gears up for the India AI Impact Summit 2026 , room rates at top luxury hotels have shot up dramatically, with some touching several lakhs per night. The development has elicited reactions from a lot of people across the country. Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai called the pricing “absurd”, warning that such spikes could create a poor impression among international visitors. “(It is) giving a bad name to India that overseas visitors are not welcome and we fleece them…Hotel chains need a code of conduct,” Pai wrote on X. He also pointed to a deeper issue of India’s limited hotel capacity. “India has only 185000 rooms, Dubai, Shanghai, New York have more rooms than India. Need huge capacity increases,” he added and tagged PM Narendra Modi, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and few others. The summit, scheduled from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam, is expected to bring more than 35,000 delegates from across the world, including tech leaders, policymakers, researchers and business executives. With such a large global crowd arriving at the same time, hotels across Delhi are already reporting near-full occupancy. And the surge in demand is clearly showing up in prices. Rooms that usually cost between Rs 20,000 and Rs 40,000 a night are now being listed at much steeper rates. Travel platforms showed that during peak dates, especially February 19 and 20, several five-star properties are charging well above Rs 1 lakh per night. In premium categories, suites at some hotels are priced between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for a single night. According to Ixigo CEO Aloke Bajpai, the summit has had a clear impact on the market. “Several five-star hotels in Delhi-NCR are going at Rs 1 lakh-plus per night between February 16 and 20,” he noted in a post on X. Iconic properties such as The Leela Palace, ITC Maurya and Taj Palace have revised their tariffs for the summit period. Many high-end rooms are either priced at peak-season levels or come with minimum stay conditions. The demand pressure isn’t limited to diplomatic enclaves. Central Delhi hotels including The Imperial, Shangri-La Eros and The Park are nearly sold out between February 18 and 20. A room at The Imperial for February 17 was reportedly listed at over Rs 2.4 lakh, while Radisson Blu is charging around Rs 1.1 lakh for the same date. The India AI Impact Summit itself is being positioned as the largest of its kind so far. More than 100 countries are expected to participate, along with 15-20 heads of government, over 50 ministers and representatives from more than 40 global and Indian companies. Around 500 leading voices from the global AI ecosystem will also attend.