Hotel occupancy rate hits single digit in Bali
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The hotel occupancy rate in Bali has dropped to a single digit, signaling that tourism in the tropical paradise is on the brink of collapse more than two weeks after the Oct. 12 bombings.
"We have asked for help from the government," said Yanti Sukamdani, the chairperson of the Hotel and Restaurant Association in Indonesia (PHRI), on Tuesday.
Yanti said the occupancy rate had become consistently worse since the bomb blasts, which killed more than 191 people, mostly foreign tourists.
As of Oct. 24, the occupancy rate stood at 11 percent, a sharp drop from the 70 percent prior to the bomb blasts.
"But the occupancy rate has now hit a single digit," Yanti told The Jakarta Post.
On Monday, the occupancy rate hit the five percent mark.
Separately on Tuesday, hotelier Pontjo Sutowo, who is the chairman of the Indonesian Society on Tourism (MPI), said the occupancy rate of the Hilton Hotel in Nusa Dua had dropped to three percent.
The sharp plunge in the occupancy rate is mainly due to a flurry of cancellations by visitors, especially foreign tourists, in the wake of the deadly bomb blasts, said Yanti, adding that about 3,000 hotel bookings in Bali had been canceled after the bomb blasts.
The Bali tragedy has also affected the hotel business in other parts of the country, most notably Jakarta.
The hotel occupancy rate in Jakarta has dropped to 45 percent from 50 percent prior to the Bali bombing, she said.
In order to weather the crisis, hotels in Bali will launch a tourism campaign to lure domestic tourists to the island, especially ahead of the religious festivities of Idul Fitri and Christmas, as well as for New Year's celebrations, she said.
The hotels will cooperate with airlines and travel agents to provide tourists with discounted holiday packages, she said.
"The campaign is under way. This is a short-term program that will last until January before all the prices return to normal," she said.
However, Pontjo voiced opposition to the campaign, saying that it was not effective and would be too costly.
A high discount rate would be useless as long as foreign tourists still doubted the security situation in Bali, he said.
"The most important thing is to motivate tourists to return to Indonesia. Once there is that motivation, other approaches, such as offering discount rates, could be useful," he said.
Therefore, Pontjo said, he supported the current efforts by the government to revive foreign tourists' confidence in Indonesia by boosting security in Bali, and to persuade the countries that had issued travel advisories on Indonesia to their citizens to revoke the warnings.
Yanti warned that mass layoffs in Bali's tourism was imminent unless the government lent a helping hand.
Some hotels in Bali have asked workers to stay home as part of their efficiency program to weather the difficult times.
"But the government is also responsible in preventing mass layoffs," said Yanti.
The government should provide incentives, including tax cuts and lower electricity rates.
And the 25 percent regional wage hike, which is to be imposed in January next year, should be delayed to provide opportunities for business sectors to recover during the crisis, Yanti added.
Some 80 percent of Bali's income comes from tourism, which directly absorbs 40 percent of the population. The island lures about 1.5 million tourists annually.