Indonesia's largest hotelier

Indonesia's largest hotelier

Today, tourism is Indonesia's third largest earner of non-oil
foreign exchange. The vast scope was visualized by Dr. H.
Sukamdani S. Gitosardjono, chairman and president director of the
Sahid Group way back in 1965, when he built a small hotel called
Sahid Sala (Solo), in the historic city of Surakarta in Central
Java.

Its successful operation led to the development of the present
Sahid Jaya Hotel in Jakarta in 1974, on a site "which was very
far away, in the bushes, in the middle of a kampung," Guido J.
Gyde said. Gyde is general manager of the Sahid Jaya Hotel &
Tower, now virtually a brand-new property after the old Sahid
Jaya Hotel has been expanded, renovated and refurbished with a
US$20 million program. The site was none other than the present
Jalan Sudirman, now rightly claimed as the Wall Street of
Indonesia.

Since then the Sahid chain of hotels has kept growing. A
second hotel in Surakarta, the former palace of the Sunan, Kusuma
Sahid Prince was reconstructed. Simultaneously, properties were
acquired in Bali, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Bandarlampung and Manado.

This was followed by two Sahid Group hotels in Tanah Toraja in
South Sulawesi and Sorong in Irian Jaya, both developing tourist
resorts. Today, the Sahid Group ranks as Indonesia's largest
hotelier and owns and manages 12 quality hotels all over the
country.

Future plans include the construction of a 300-room property
in Ujungpandang in 1997, and the Sahid Tamara Beach Hotel at
Senggigi Beach in Lombok.

The Sahid Group has indeed made a major contribution to the
growth of tourism in Indonesia and intends to continue its
efforts in the future.

Articles in this section were written by Ms Sheila Natesan.