Sahid to operate hotel in Jeddah
JAKARTA (JP): PT Sahid International Hotel Management and Consultant (SIHM&C) has agreed to operate a hotel owned by Badr Trading and Contracting Est. in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
SIHM&C, represented by Sahid Hotels Group vice president Peter Soehardjo, signed a five-year operating and management agreement with Badr representative Samir Omarie here on Monday.
The five-star Al Badr Sahid Hotel will start operating on Nov. 15, and it will have its grand opening on Dec. 1.
The hotel is located in the heart of Jidda, about a five- minute drive from the Al Balad Center shopping area. It has 565 rooms and was previously managed by Sheraton.
Samir Omarie said Badr chose Sahid to manage the hotel because the company would likely be able to cater to customers from Indonesia and neighboring countries who went through Jidda while on Moslem pilgrimages to Mecca.
"Our concern is good will and professionalism," Omarie said.
This is the first time the Sahid chain, which has been operating for 30 years, has fully managed a hotel abroad without investing in the building.
The president of the Sahid Group, Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono, said his company had leased and managed a hotel in Mecca but stopped two years ago because of inefficient management.
It was also, in cooperation with a local company, to lease and manage a hotel that was still under construction in Medina, he said.
Sukamdani said all of Sahid's current projects had been halted due to financial difficulties caused by the prolonged economic crisis.
"We operate 22 hotels out of the 27 we manage or own, because the monetary crisis has forced us to stop on-going projects," he said.
He said Sahid's projects in Medan (North Sumatra), Probolinggo (East Java), Surabaya (East Java), Lampung and Jakarta were halted because the company could no longer finance the construction.
"Our office building construction (right by the hotel in Jakarta) has stopped. It was supposed to have 38 floors, but only 12 floors plus two basements have been completed," he said.
The high interest rates imposed by the banks as the result of the government's tight monetary policy made it hard for the company to obtain funding for its projects, he said.
He said the occupancy rate at Sahid Jaya Hotel in Jakarta was currently about 35 percent, compared to an average of 28 percent for all the star-rated hotels in the capital.
Occupancy rates in other parts of the country, such as Solo and Semarang (both in Central Java), Bandung (West Java), Medan (North Sumatra) and Ujung Pandang (South Sulawesi) were worse, especially since riots hit the country in mid May, he said.
The May riots, which led to president Soeharto's resignation, has hurt the tourism business across the country. (das)