Indian business class with surplus funds are increasingly becoming power players across the spectrum of the USA's hotel industry. Few other industries can claim such a large minority influence.

In 2007 - Indian-Americans own 43% of the 47,000 hotels and motels in the country, according to Asian American Hotel Owners Association, or AAHOA, which draws its membership mainly from Indian-Americans. The first large wave of Indian immigrants to the USA started in the 1970s, a decade after President Lyndon Johnson eliminated country-by-country quotas. And the wave has gained strength. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2.3 million Asian Indians lived in the USA in 2005, a 35% increase from 2000.

Indians who have made their money in other businesses back home - in Kolkata to Coimbatore and New Delhi to Hyderabad - are increasingly taking over the keys from distressed owners in the US who are selling at rock-bottom prices to repay their growing debt. The main reasons attributed to this investment are an eye for a real estate boom later, till then can earn money as the business is set in and last but not the least is due to prices which are quite cheap comparative to the same assets in any metro in the country.

This is especially the case in the warmer states, such as Florida and Nevada, where vacation homes are the first to be put up for sale in the market which remains stubbornly depressed three years after the economic crisis hit home. Prices have dropped to as low as Rs 10 lakh per room in some locations close to the mega tourist attraction Disneyland in Florida's Orlando, for example, says V Santhana Raman, chief executive of Ace Hotel Brokers India.

Whatever be the reason Indians are investing abroad to see better future as that is the Indian Psychology. So be prepared to see some known faces the next time you land in an US hotel.