Mulia Hotel ready for the Games: PR Manager

JAKARTA (JP): The Hotel Mulia Senayan rejected accusations yesterday that it was not ready for the SEA Games after it turned away foreign athletes on Friday who thought they were staying there.

The hotel's public relations manager, Ira Maya Sopha, said: "We are ready for the Games. More than 550 rooms have already been completed and more will be ready by the time all the athletes and officials arrive."

She said the hotel was due to accommodate about 1,700 people, with three people to a room, during the biennial competition which is being held in Jakarta from Oct. 11 to Oct. 19.

Laotian and Thai soccer players were not given rooms Friday because they were not on the list given to the hotel by the SEA Games Organizing Committee (OC), Ira Maya said. The athletes eventually ended up staying at Hotel Horizon in Ancol.

"We only received the list of people who are staying at the hotel from the OC yesterday afternoon. There were no Laotian athletes on the list at all.

"We are accommodating athletes from Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. Moreover we have only agreed to do so from today until October 21."

Despite this agreement, she said, the hotel did give rooms to Myanmar athletes who arrived Friday, even though it was a day early.

The 40-story, 1,008-room hotel on Jl. Asia Afrika is owned by the Bimantara Group, which is controlled by President Soeharto's second son Bambang Trihatmodjo. It has been built in less than nine months with up to 6,500 people working on the site daily.

Not all the facilities, such as some of the seven restaurants, the swimming pool and tennis courts, are ready. But Ira Maya said the athletes and officials would be properly looked after.

"As far as food goes, the Cafe and the Cascade Lounge are already open. The athletes can eat breakfast and lunch there. We are going to give them supper in the grand ballroom every night."

The 2,500-square-meter ballroom can accommodate 4,000 people for stand-up receptions and 2,500 people for sit-down functions.

President Soeharto officiated at the hotel's grand opening on Sept. 20 but it will not open to the public until the end of this month, Ira Maya said.

"We don't have a fixed date yet it should be very soon after the last of the athletes leave on October 21."