Hotel association stresses professionalism

Hotel association stresses professionalism

JAKARTA (JP): What would happen if no more tourists visited Bali? Imagine all the jobless Balinese.

This could actually happen if the country's leading tourist destination is taken for granted, says the chairman of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association, Pontjo Nugro Susilo Sutowo.

"We always have to learn, even though we feel that we have already mastered certain skills or knowledge," said Pontjo, the man who raced against time to revamp the old Jakarta Convention Center in seven months to be ready for the 10th Non-Aligned Movement summit.

The constant upgrading of skills, says the owner of PT Indobuildco which runs the 20-year-old Jakarta Hilton International, is the key in the increasingly tight competition in the hotel business.

Indonesians are not far behind in the quality of services in the tourist industry, but there is much room for improvement, he said.

Take for instance services for VIPs.

"We never encountered requests for diet and non-cholesterol food from foreign visitors before. It has only cropped up in the last few years," he told The Jakarta Post.

Pontjo, 46, is the fourth of six children of Ibnu Sutowo, former president of state-owned petroleum company Pertamina.

Born in the South Sumatra capital city of Palembang, Pontjo was only 20 years old in 1970 when he set up PT Adiguna Shipyard.

This was the firm which boosted the family business started by Ibnu, the Nugra Santana Group.

Oblivious to the public scrutiny of well-connected entrepreneurs such as a son of Ibnu Sutowo, Pontjo, with an increasing business sense, expanded the group to include construction, banking, insurance, off-shore drilling, agribusiness and pearling.

In the hotel business, Pontjo went on to point out the vital need of innovations to attract more visitors to the country.

"We always have to be able to serve visitors with new and alluring attractions," he said, citing the country's richness in traditional arts and culture.

He said Indonesia also has to consider new facilities and amenities for hotel and tourist services.

Tourism contributes a significant amount of foreign exchange to the country's coffers. Last year, it earned the country US$5.2 billion from 4.3 million foreign visitors.

Meetings

Of the total foreign exchange Indonesia earned from foreign tourists last year, 30 percent was from people who came here for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibition purposes.

This was after Pontjo and his staff virtually turned around the entrance of the Jakarta Convention Center to face the Senayan Parking Lot.

The center, which attracts most of Jakarta's convention and exhibition business, now accommodates 7,000 people compared to the original capacity of 3,500.

The marble-floored tunnel connecting the center to the Hilton Hotel proved convenient for participants of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in 1992 when fleeing from reporters.

Now Jakarta has enough venues for such international functions, but still, Pontjo says, there are hurdles to overcome.

"The major handicap is the price of our infrastructure. Costs for electricity, telephone connections and transportation are relatively higher than those of our close and serious competitor, Singapore," he said.

Pontjo added that other reason for higher service fees here is the large number of payments and levies that Jakarta hotels and tourist sites have to bear.

Besides regular fees like security services, advertisements, and taxes on food and beverages, there are incidental contributions like funding sports events. Apart from that, other facilities in hotels such as karaoke lounges, fitness centers and restaurants are subject to separate taxes.

Local and central governments should reconsider the necessity of burdening hotels with so many fees, Pontjo added.

Accommodating more international flights connecting the world's cities is also a must to boost the hotel and tourist industry, said Pontjo.

"The Soekarno-Hatta International Airport is visited by only 36 international airlines per day, while Singapore's Changi Airport caters to about 70 airlines daily," he said.

He cited the figure of visiting foreigners to Singapore and compared them to those visiting Indonesia and Jakarta. Six million foreigners visited the neighboring country last year, while out of the only 4.3 million that visited Indonesia, two million visited Jakarta. (imn/yan)