Holiday Inn expands to Semarang
SEMARANG, Central Java (JP): Holiday Inn Worldwide, the hotel division of Britain's Bass Plc., will begin operating its fourth hotel in Indonesia here later this year.
The four-star Holiday Inn Semarang is owned by Napan Group, one of the country's leading diversified private business groups.
J.F. Ma'roef, an executive director of PT Niagatama Arsaraya, a subsidiary of Napan, which owns the Holiday Inn Semarang, said here yesterday that the 213-room hotel would have its soft opening in August.
"The grand opening is scheduled for late this year," he said after symbolically marking the topping off of the 10-story hotel.
The hotel is situated on a 7,723-square-meter plot on Jl. Sisingamangaraja in Candi, the upper area of this city.
Ma'roef said that his company had invested about US$31 million in the hotel's construction.
"A bank syndication led by Bank Pacific has extended a five- year $21.5-million loan," he said.
The capital of Central Java has only a limited number of four- star hotels, including the Patra Jasa of the state-owned oil firm Pertamina, the Graha Santika of the Gramedia Group and the Ciputra Hotel, which is managed by the Hong Kong-based Swiss-bel Hotel chain.
The city's deputy mayor, Herdjono, said yesterday that the city still had an insufficient number of star-rated hotels as well as tourist destinations and attractions. "Though Semarang is less popular than Yogyakarta and Surakarta in Central Java, the city has now become a destination, not just a transit center."
According to Ma'roef, the Holiday Inn Semarang would target both businesspeople and tourists as its guests.
"The number of star-rated hotels in this city is incomparable with its economic growth of 13.3 percent and per capita income of 19.4 percent per year," he said, confident that the hotel would have high occupancy rates.
He said that the hotel would be Napan's first hotel.
Napan would also develop another Holiday Inn hotel in Yogyakarta, he said.
The property division of Napan has a number of properties in Jakarta, including a tourist resort on Pulau Ayer in the Thousand Islands chain, the Puri Raya apartment block, the Jakarta Golf Village in Kemayoran and Pasar Pagi Mangga Dua.
Holiday Inn currently manages the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza in Jakarta, the Holiday Inn Bali and the Holiday Inn Lombok.
The properties in Jakarta and Bali are owned by PT Prabu Budi Mulia, an affiliate of the Wijaya Wisesa business group, and PT Puri Bunga, respectively. The Holiday Inn Bali is owned by PT Lombok Seaside Cottage of the Blue Bird transportation business group.
Holiday Inn Worldwide's director of project development, Nigel St. J. Harris, said yesterday that his company would manage four other hotels in Indonesia, in Jakarta; Bandung, West Java; Surabaya, East Java and Medan, North Sumatra.
Holiday Inn Worldwide has more than 2,000 hotels in some 60 countries and territories. (icn)