Hotel occupancy drops by 10 percent

Hotel occupancy drops by 10 percent

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The demand for rooms at international hotels in the capital has
slumped since the bombing at JW Marriott Hotel, Mega Kuningan
business district, South Jakarta, last Tuesday. However, the
chairman of a hotel association expects that the situation will
improve in the near future.

George Benney, chairman of the Jakarta International Hotel
Association, told a media briefing on Monday that occupancy rates
at 28 international member hotels of the association had dropped
by 10 percent, from a previous 45 percent, after the bombing that
claimed 11 lives and injured 148 others.

"There were also 2,500 room cancellations during the three-day
period after the blast. But that has now stopped and we estimate
that new bookings are coming in," he said.

Benney compared the Marriott bombing's impact to last year's
Bali bombings in which 202 people, mostly Western holidaymakers,
were killed while over 300 others were injured.

After the Bali bombings, the hotel occupancy rate in Jakarta
dropped to around 25 percent. The blast almost caused the
collapse of the hotel industry on the resort island.

"The occupancy rate in the short term will be negative but it
won't be so bad," Benney said.

Among the 28 members of the association are Hyatt, Starwood
Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Accor, Mandarin Oriental
International and also Marriott.

Benney, the general manager of Mandarin Oriental hotel,
Central Jakarta, said that his hotel had already recorded
bookings for September.

"It seems customers are not overreacting to the bombing.
People do understand that this is a global war on terrorism, not
just in Jakarta or Indonesia," he said, adding that his
association had talked to customers to measure their reactions
after the blast.

Benney said the association was "a bit optimistic" that the
situation would improve, as hotels in Jakarta targeted mostly
business travelers rather than tourists.

"They have to come to Jakarta anyway. Even if the CEOs, for
example, declined to come, their managers would still need to
come to do business with Indonesian companies," he argued.

International hotels in Jakarta have pledged to put long-term
security measures in place to fight terrorist attacks.

All member hotels have started to beef up security by having
only one entrance, hiring more security guards and seeking advice
from professional security firms.

However, Benney said, most hotels could only provide hand-held
metal detectors. They could not provide security gates that can
detect plastic explosives, as they cost US$60,000 each.

However, he would not elaborate on additional spending by
hotels on improved security measures.

Benney predicted that hotel occupancy would improve in late
August at the earliest, "if the authorities manage to put in
their best efforts in fighting terrorism and we continue to
maintain good communications with the police and the
authorities."

The tourism sector, which accounts for about 5 percent of the
country's gross domestic product, was just starting to recover
from last year's Bali bombings.

Police have rounded up most of the perpetrators, allegedly
members of the shadowy Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group. One of
the suspects, Amrozi, was sentenced to death last week.