Hotels change strategies under market conditions

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

Thanks to the opening of the Cikampek-Purwakarta-Padalarang expressway, better known as the Cipularang toll road, the car journey from Jakarta to Bandung has been reduced from four hours to just two.

This means busier days for the marketing staffers and public relations officers of star-rated hotels in Bandung because domestic tourists from Jakarta are now going more to Bandung, but not only on weekends.

Ratri, a public relations officer of Preanger Hotel in Jl. Asia Afrika, said that the marketing strategy of hotels in Bandung had to be modified to respond to the changing stay patterns on the part of Jakarta visitors.

At present, she said, more meetings were being held in Bandung by businesspeople or companies from Jakarta. Meanwhile, local tourists are less interested in staying in the hotels because the relatively short trip between Jakarta and Bandung makes it easier to come and go without the need for an overnight stay.

Since the toll road extension, which covers a distance of over 41 kilometers, was open to the public on April 26, 2005, there has been a jump in the number of visitors from Jakarta coming to Bandung for shopping or dining.

Over 400,000 tourists come to Bandung every week, most on weekends. They shop and dine in the city or sometimes spend a day or two at a hotel.

In the first few days after the toll road was open to the public, the occupancy rate of hotels in Bandung dropped by 20 percent to 30 percent because visitors from Jakarta did not spend a night in Bandung. About 50 regular Preanger customers from Jakarta, who usually stay at the hotel for two to three days, now came to Bandung and returned to Jakarta on the same day, Ratri added.

"To attract visitors, we have, since July, offered our 6-to-6 package at Rp 288,000. This means visitors may have a standard room from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. at this rate. Therefore, they can have a rest and refresh themselves before returning to Jakarta," she said.

Similarly, Ristina Setyawan, public relations officer of Panghegar Hotel in Jl. Merdeka, said that a drop in the occupancy rate had forced her hotel to redouble its efforts to maintain the loyalty of its customers. Every weekend, for example, Panghegar offers a variety of surprises like door prizes or gifts, to families staying at the hotel.

"To encourage them to stay in our hotel for a longer period, we have also made available additional facilities such as an indoor tennis court and spa. We also allow a 20 percent discount on weekdays," she said.

Apart from changing their promotional strategy, some hotels, previously claiming to be family hotels, have now declared themselves to be business hotels. Dwi Tania Purwanti, public relations officer of Homann Hotel, said that her hotel had followed this trend because many businesspeople, government officials and staff from state-owned enterprises opted to hold their meetings and training seminars in Bandung.

"Of course, to survive, we must be able to "read" the wishes of our customers. Therefore, we are preparing meeting packages of hourly or half-daily duration in addition to the conventional package of a minimum of two days (including a stay in the hotel)," she said.

Recently, she added, the hotel had received, almost every day, reservations for meetings.

Meanwhile, Ratri went on, the Preanger had, since July this year, offered brief meetings packages. They have even converted their mini restaurant into a brief meeting venue for a maximum of 10 people in response to an increased demand for such meetings.

"If you ask me whether Preanger is a family hotel or a business one, I can tell you that ours is a business hotel on weekdays but a family hotel on weekends," Ratri said, smiling.

Thanks to their new marketing tricks, the occupancy rate of hotels in Bandung had risen. Since late August, for example, the rate has been more than 70 percent, rising to more than 90 percent at weekends.

Still, Dwi said, hotels had to remain flexible in their marketing strategy as the competition was getting stiffer all the time. More than 100 hotels exist in Bandung with a total of over 6,600 rooms, while several new hotels are currently under construction.

Given the activities of hotels in Bandung in anticipation of a tourist boom, chairman of the West Java chapter of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association (IHRA) HS Hermawan indicated his deep concern, instead, for IHRA members in Puncak, Bogor, Cianjur and Purwakarta, as they were all losing customers fast.

"They have lost over 40 percent of their customers. Many hotels and restaurants in Purwakarta are up for sale now. In Puncak, a famous hotel is open only once a week because there are hardly any visitors," he noted.

Therefore, Hermawan urged, all stakeholders in the tourism sector should pay attention to any negative impact caused by the opening of the Cipularang toll road. The West Java provincial administration, he said, must immediately take wise steps to ensure that tourists will flock not only to Bandung, so that there would be economic equity in all regions.