RI hotel industry offers more chances to foreigners
RI hotel industry offers more chances to foreigners
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's rapidly growing hotel industry offers greater opportunities to overseas hotel-utensil manufacturers rather than domestic firms, which generally fail to anticipate growing opportunities, a senior tourism official said.
"Domestic manufacturers of hotel-related products should be more creative in following the rapidly growing hotel industry," the chief of the Jakarta office of tourism, post and telecommunications, Pudjo Basuki, told The Jakarta Post after officially opening an exhibition of food and hotels at the Jakarta Fairgrounds yesterday.
He said that most of the participants at the exhibition, including producers of food, hotel appliances and other goods, are from foreign countries.
"I don't see any domestic meat supplier at the exhibition. I think foreign businessmen are more sharp in observing the market in Indonesia," he said.
In his speech Pudjo said that such an exhibition tightly relates with the progress of Indonesia's tourism and leisure businesses.
There are 403 participants from 23 countries in the four-day exhibition, which is organized by PT Pamerindo Buana Abadi.
An executive of the company, Helly Koesno, said that her company has actually invited lots of domestic firms to participate in the event.
"Domestic firms account for only about 30 percent of the participants of the event," she said, adding that domestic hotel- related producers are reluctant to take part in such an exhibition.
Domestic products
A participant at the exhibition, Louis Tjipta, said that domestic companies of hotel equipment are mainly just distributors of foreign products.
He said most Indonesian businessmen are usually slower than foreigners in seeing business opportunities.
Tjipta, who is a manager of PT Indekor Indah Perkasa, said that his company is a distributor of a Norwegian mechanical and electronic key system.
He said that his company has already installed key systems in 8,070 rooms of 35 hotels in Indonesia.
An Austrian participant, Wolfgang F. Pfuner, said that he supplies German-made hotel equipment, including cutlery, kitchen utensils and glasses for many luxury hotels in the country, through his Indonesian partner PT Sarijaya Indosakti.
An executive of PT Relindo Winapratama, Indra Kamaludin, told the Post that domestic hotel-utensil firms do not have good chances because hotel designs are often determined by the international hotel management firms operating hotels in Indonesia.
He said that his company, a supplier of room amenities and chinaware products, is usually requested, by star-rated hotels, to use imported products.
Exhibitors of kitchen, bakery and laundry equipment said that there are no Indonesian products available for the fast growing hotel industry.
The government projects that the country needs 80,000 more hotel rooms, within the ongoing sixth Five Year Development Plan period, to face the fast growth of the tourism industry.
Approximately 6,000 rooms will be constructed in Jakarta this year, meaning that downstream hotel-related industries will reap the benefits. (icn)