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.