SEA Games participants spread throughout 35 hotels

JAKARTA (JP): The participants in the 19th SEA Games are staying in 35 different hotels during the competition, the organizers' accommodation deputy Rianto Nurhadi said yesterday.

Rianto, who is also the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association's secretary, said that Hotel Mulia Senayan, dubbed the athletes' village, could not accommodate all 4,000 sportsmen and women from the participating countries.

"We have to lodge them in different hotels near their venues," he said.

The 1,008-room Mulia was initially scheduled to house about 2,700 athletes but it is only accommodating 1,700 guests.

All the soccer teams are staying in Hotel Horison, North Jakarta, and Hotel Omni Batavia, West Jakarta.

"Both hotels have easy access to the toll road so all teams can go faster and easier to the Senayan Main stadium and the Lebak Bulus stadium," Rianto said.

The hotels in Purwakarta and Subang cannot accommodate all the rowers and cyclists and so the organizers are putting them in hotels in nearby towns, including in Cikarang and Bekasi.

Some 700 rowers are being accommodated in the Indosat and the Otorita Jatiluhur cottages, the Sahid Lippo Cikarang and the Horison Bekasi.

"The furthest hotel is the Horison Bekasi. Most of the time we will need about one hour to go from the hotel to the venue. In peak hours, we may need about two hours," Rianto said.

So far, none of the teams have complained about the distance from their hotels to their respective venues.

"Well, they have some advantages by staying in four-star hotels because they can use all the facilities," he said.

"Initially, they complained because they had to wake up very early for the competition, which starts on 8 a.m. But now they have got used to it," he added.

Rianto said each hotel is providing the meals for the athletes.

"It's impossible to order the meals from only one catering outlet. The hotels must be able to arrange the meal times because they are serving hundreds or thousands of people," he said.

Due to the limited budget, the hotels are offering buffet meals but their staff will ensure that there is enough food for all the athletes.

"We don't want to get complaints from the athletes saying that our food is not good," Rianto said.

Each team is paying $30 per athlete per night for board and lodging.

The balance -- the hotel rates are $24 while the meal rates are $20 -- is being met by the organizers.

"The organizers are subsidizing $34 to each athlete every day but the city administration is also giving us a 50 percent discount on the 21 percent tax," he said.

"We also are not using the current dollar rate but we all agreed to use the old rate of Rp 2,500 for one US dollar to express our participation in the Games," he added. (yan)