Parking: A lot of bother

Parking: A lot of bother

From Neraca

Hotels provide parking facilities to their guests and visitors. There used to be no charge for parking. Later on, parking fees became necessary to finance the orderliness, supervision and comfort of the lots.

Therefore, Gubernatorial Decree No.1598/1999 on Parking Fees at Public Parking Facilities in the Jakarta region, also applicable to hotels, should be adhered to, provided it is not legally flawed.

Hotel parking is either managed by the hotel itself or by an outside company. In either case, its contribution to a hotel's revenue is very small, below 1 percent of its total revenue.

Therefore, a parking fee of Rp 1,000 for the first hour and Rp 1,000 for each of the following hours will have no great impact on a hotel's revenue.

It is more important for hotels to step up the service and comfort of parking for its guests, who bring in money by paying for rooms, food and beverages, telephone calls, faxes and other facilities in the hotel. Thus, the hotel is enabled by its total revenue to meet its obligations to its employees, suppliers, hotel owners and to pay its debts.

The Jakarta Administration should not be trying to close down hotels. Hotels and restaurants bring in a large amount of hotel and restaurant taxes, entertainment taxes and advertising taxes. In the 2000 regional budget the tax target from the hotel and restaurant sector is Rp 250 billion, with entertainment tax at Rp 25 billion and advertising tax at Rp 52 billion. If hotels are closed down, where would the Jakarta Administration find a replacement for this tax revenue?

The Jakarta Administration needs to consider the basic rates set by state electricity company PLN in April 2000. Peak (6pm-10 pm) and off-peak rates (10 p.m.- 6 p.m.) have increased by 59.03 percent. The Jakarta Administration with its 3 percent tax on street lighting has also enjoyed the rate increase.

Hotels unable to increase their revenue from the tourism sector will object to paying for PLN's power, accounting for 75 percent of their energy costs. Room occupancy rates average 40 percent. Jakarta has a total of 26,195 hotel rooms, both star- rated and nonstar-rated. With 40 percent occupancy, there are still 15,717 rooms unoccupied every night.

The Jakarta Administration should help in solving the problems faced by hotels at present.

DIYAK MULAHELA

Chairman

Association of Hotel

Controllers

Jakarta