Choice Hotels offers more rooms

JAKARTA (JP): PT Choice Hotels Indonesia, the master franchiser in Indonesia for the Choice Hotels International chain, has opened a new hotel in Batam, in the Riau province, and additional apartment-hotel units in Yogyakarta.

A spokesperson for Choice, Dina Herdiana, said yesterday the hotel in Batam, called Quality Resort Batam, would open 50 rooms by the end of the month, during its soft operation.

The 170-room hotel, located within Batam's waterfront city, is to have its grand opening by mid-1997.

The four-star hotel is owned by PT Marina City Development.

Batam, located 20 kilometers southeast of Singapore, has been developed since the early 1970s as an industrial and tourist center.

Meanwhile, the Comfort Suites Yogyakarta, a Choice apartment- hotel in Yogyakarta, earlier this month opened 32 additional units, bringing a total of 75 rooms.

The property, owned by PT Sejahtera Garden Resort Hotel, has operated 36 units with a total 80 rooms since 1995.

The Comfort Suites Yogyakarta planned to open 130 units by end of this year.

Unlike other star-rated hotels in Yogyakarta, Comfort Suites offered unique facilities -- a combination of a hotel rooms and serviced apartments -- and targeted long-stay guests as its customers on a monthly basis.

Choice, affiliated with the United States Choice Hotels International, currently operates five hotels in Indonesia located in Pacung and Taman Mumbul (both in Bali), Parapat (North Sumatra), Yogyakarta and Bandung (West Java).

In addition to the Quality Resort Batam, Choice expected to open later this year four hotels located in Carita (West Java) and Surabaya (East Java), Soekarno-Hatta airport and on Jl. Juanda in Jakarta; three others, in Jakarta, Palembang (South Sumatra) and Bogor (West Java) would open next year. (icn)