Bandung lacks 3,000 hotel rooms on weekend<\/p>\n
Yuli Tri Suwarni
\nThe Jakarta Post\/Bandung<\/p>\n
Surya was confused. He had been hours looking for a hotel room
\nnearby Bandung's Station Hall area, where the main railway
\nstation in the city is located, but his efforts had been
\nunfruitful. All of the hotels he could find were already fully
\nbooked or occupied. It was a cool 9 p.m. on Saturday evening, and
\nhe began considering the prospect of sleeping in a mosque.<\/p>\n
\"Where else I can go?\" thought Surya, a Jakartan, who had just
\nattended a wedding party in Bandung. He blamed himself for not
\nbeing prepared for his trip to Bandung. He had thought it would
\nbe easy to find hotel room in the city, which is one of the four
\nlargest in the country.<\/p>\n
Feeling frustrated and annoyed, Surya dragged himself to yet
\nanother hotel.<\/p>\n
He finally found refuge at the Hotel Jelita Parahiyangan, a
\nfew kilometers away from the train station, after a passing man
\ntold him there were two empty rooms.<\/p>\n
The problem Surya faces is a common one in Bandung. The city
\ncurrently faces a shortage of at least 3,000 hotel rooms to
\naccommodate the increasing number of travelers every weekend,
\naccording to the West Java Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants
\nAssociation (PHRI).<\/p>\n
PHRI chairman H. Dermawan said there were only about 3,000
\nrooms available in the city, ranging from five-star hotels to
\nmodest inns, while on the weekends there could be more than 7,000
\nrooms sought by prospective guests.<\/p>\n
\"Frankly speaking, we are at loss at how to respond to the
\nincreasing demand for hotel rooms at weekends -- what can we do?\"<\/p>\n
\"We can't just build more hotels,\" Dermawan said recently on
\nthe sidelines of the West Java Travel Exchange (JTX) 2004
\nexhibition at Bandung City Hall.<\/p>\n
Dermawan said that investment in the hotel sector was
\nessential, keeping in mind the high demand for hotel rooms in
\nBandung.<\/p>\n
But such expansion was not possible, he said, because hotels
\nwere not fully occupied for the whole week. If hotels expanded in
\nsize to address the demand for the weekend, the investment would
\nnot generate more revenue, as the buildings would be left idle on
\nweekdays, he said.<\/p>\n
However, Dermawan said the hotel occupancy rate in Bandung was
\nstill the highest in the province.<\/p>\n
On weekdays they were between 50 and 60 percent full. In other
\ntourist destinations like Pangandaran beach in Ciamis, the
\noccupancy rate is only about 17 percent. The city of Sukabumi has
\na rate of 30 to 40 percent, while the Puncak resort area, which
\nencompasses Bogor and Cianjur, is at about 50 percent.<\/p>\n
Data on tourist numbers show Bandung, considered by many a
\nshopping paradise, is still the No. 1 tourist destination in West
\nJava province.<\/p>\n
Almost half of both the domestic and foreign tourists visiting
\nWest Java province stop in the city.<\/p>\n
Tourism is lucrative in West Java. Some 35 million local and
\n400,000 foreign tourists have visited the province since January
\nthis year, bringing in Rp 17 trillion (US$1.8 billion) gross
\nrevenue into the province for the first-half year.<\/p>",
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