Patra Bali strives to repeat past glory

Patra Bali strives to repeat past glory

Pandaya, The Jakarta Post, Kuta, Bali

The black and white pictures on the wall of the eclectic Cellar
Underground emulate the sense of classicality.

U.S. defense secretary Caspar Weinberger chats with his
Indonesian counterpart Gen. M. Yusuf while their wives sit idle
side by side, looking like they have run out of topics.

Other pictures show numerous world leaders on various
occasions while staying at the hotel: the youthful Prince Charles
in the early 1970s, Burmese president Ne Win, Australian prime
minister Gough Whitlam, Yugoslavia president Peter Stambolic,
Queen Beatrix from the Netherlands -- to mention just a few.

The pub at the Patra Bali Resort and Villas lies a few meters
under the surface of the nearby large swimming pool and the famed
Kuta beach and under the shade of an odd coconut tree which has
branches.

The pictures, many of those look like family albums, are a
record of the hotel's past glory that its present managers
sweetly remember and want to repeat.

Then, the palm-fringed hotel was a favorite place for world
leaders and businesspeople to convene or just to stay while they
were on holiday in Bali which, of course was not as developed as
it is today.

"We want to repeat the success of the Pertamina Cottage," said
a determined Djinaldi Gosana, The Patra Bali Resort and Villas
general manager.

The 10.5-hectare resort in Southern Kuta Beach started as a
modest guesthouse back in 1972 destined to accommodate employees
and guests of the state oil company Pertamina, the owner of the
facility.

In its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, Pertamina built such
accommodations, which became the Patra hotel chain, near the site
of their major operations.

The Bali Patra hotel, the most successful of the Patra chain,
has been renovated and renamed several times before it was
relaunched as The Patra Bali Resort and Villas on Sept. 10, 2003.

It made its international debut as a world class conference
venue when it hosted the 1976 ASEAN (Association of Southeast
Asian Nations) and OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries) conferences.

PT Patra Jasa and the hotel's management know only too well
that their yearning to bring back the old glory is no easy job
now when new world-class hotels and resorts have sprung up over
the past decades on the holiday island, offering a similar wide
range of facilities.

The plummeting visitation to Bali following the 2002 Kuta
bombing and the global SARS scare do not seem to erode their
confidence of a bright prospect ahead.

"We are optimistic that this venture will break even in
Between five and seven years," said Patra Jasa president director
Tony Purbowo. "We expect the occupancy rate will jump to 60
percent by the end of 2004."

The target would surely force the management to work harder
because, as Purbowo acknowledged, the occupancy rate of hotels in
Bali have dropped to 15 percent since the bomb and SARS.

PT Patra Jasa, which is also planning to rework its hotels in
Semarang, Bandung and Anyer Beach in Banten, has been working to
reshape its management to make the best of the hotels competitive
edge.

"We are striving to shed our image as a state-run company,"
Purbowo said, referring to the stereotyping of such companies,
which are often associated with inefficiency, poor management and
corruption.

The Patra Bali, which is doing some finishing touches, has a
whole lot of brand new facilities and promises services that
other hotels elsewhere in Bali may not have.

The vast complex located just five minutes drive from Ngurah
Rai International Airport boasts 228 rooms with a touch of regal
palatial club offering the semi boutique and resort concepts.

The Resort has 169 rooms and the "Resort within the Resort"
has 59 semi-boutique villas.

The resort rates range between US$150 for the deluxe room to
US$800 for the presidential suite -- all excluding the 21 percent
service charge.

While the villa rates start from US$400 Club Suite to the
US$1,500 royal villa with three bedrooms - plus the service tax.
The guests may choose to stay with 24-hour butler service at the
villas.

Discounts are offered for domestic guests, club members and
those on group tours.

Guests are pampered with a wide range of services and
facilities, from spa, kids club, convention halls, three swimming
pools, sunset mezzanine, library, amphitheater, games room
foreign food restaurants, to mention some.

Although it is located just outside the airport, the noise
from the roaring aircraft is not a factor thanks to the great
distance from the runway and the rooms' well-designed soundproof
systems.

Rooms are spacious and the cozy interior decorated in the
modern Balinese style. The Balinese symbols like statues,
entrance gates, community meeting hall and deity statues,
dominate the whole landscape -- assuring the guest "this in
Bali".

A lot of effort has been made and a lot of money has been
spent to repeat Pertamina Cottage's past glory now when time has
changed a lot.

"The market is wide open," Purbowo said.