JP/18/HOTELS

JP/18/HOTELS

Hotels change marketing strategy in anticipation of tourist boom

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.