SARS deals a heavy blow to tourism in Batam
M. Taufiqurrahman The Jakarta Post Jakarta
The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) across East Asia has had a devastating effect on tourism on Batam island, businesspeople have said.
The chairman of the Batam chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI), Urmy Sungkar, said on Friday that the number of tourists coming to the island had dropped by 50 percent from the monthly average of 70,000 during the first three months of the year, or prior to the outbreak of SARS.
Despite the fact that there have been no cases of SARS on Batam, excessive media coverage on the spread of the virus has deterred people from visiting the island.
Since its outbreak, SARS has infected 6,300 people worldwide in 30 countries, killing more than 400 people. In neighboring Singapore, 24 people afflicted with SARS have died while 3,000 people have been quarantined.
Sungkar also said the occupancy rate of hotels in Batam had plunged to an alarming figure.
"Currently, the occupancy rate of in-the-city hotels, which account for 70 percent of all hotels in Batam is only 45 percent, far below the 80 percent to 90 percent occupancy rate prior to the outbreak of SARS," he said.
As for resort hotels, he said that the occupancy rate stood at 25 percent, lower than the 50 percent to 60 percent during the normal season.
A recent report from the Central Statistics Agency revealed that in February the occupancy rate of hotels in the country's top ten tourist destinations averaged 35.96 percent, down from 40.22 percent in January.
Sungkar added that the slowdown in tourism in Batam had made a negative impact on the island's economy.
"Tourism has a multiplier effect on the lives of Batam's people, because during the tourists' stay on the island, they spend money not only on accommodation, but also on transportation, food and other related necessities," he said.
He said that the total losses from SARS had been very detrimental to people given tourism's substantial contributions to the island's economy.
Last year, Batam earned US$388 million in foreign exchange from the one million tourists that visited the island.
Confirming Sungkar's statement, the deputy chairman of the Batam chamber of commerce and industry (Kadin), Nada Soraya, told reporters that given its close proximity to Singapore -- a country that has seen a rapid spread of the deadly virus -- Batam would have to shoulder the negative impact of the illness.
"The most obvious indicator is the total number of passengers arriving at Batam port has dropped by 70 percent from March," she said, without elaborating on the figure.
However, there was not much that businesspeople on the island could do but to wait for the illness to subside, she said.
Realizing that a great number of tourists came from Singapore, Sungkar said: "The problem is that Singaporeans are told by their government to stay at home and restrain from traveling. Should the travel advisory be lifted, we will soon see a recovery in tourism."