Yogyakarta's big hotels expect brisk business

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Star-rated hotels in this ancient city expect occupancy rates to surge at least to 80 percent during the year-end holidays from the current less than 50 percent occupancy level.

Some hotels said that they had been forced to reject new reservations for between Dec. 25 to Jan. 1 when the year-end holidays would reach their peak.

"We'll have no unoccupied rooms for a week between Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, 2001. We have had to put many guests on our waiting list," the five star-rated hotel Hyatt Regency's promotion department staff, Wikan Brisbana, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

She said that 80 percent of the Hyatt's rooms were already booked mostly by domestic guests from Dec. 24 to 25. "People have begun to book rooms from November," she said.

Another five star-rated hotel the Sheraton Yogyakarta also faces the same situation ahead of the holidays. The hotel's 241 rooms have been fully booked for the period Dec. 28 to Jan. 1, 2001.

"We'll have many more guests this year compared to the previous festive season. I'm sure it's because of the 'meeting' of three holidays in the same week," Sheraton's public relation, Ema Octaviana, told the Post.

Although the public holidays will take place only on Dec. 25 for Christmas, Dec. 27 and Dec. 28 for Idul Fitri and Jan. 1 for the new year, many government and private offices will be closed from Dec. 24 until Jan. 2

Separately, assistant to the front office manager of the four- star hotel Santika Yogyakarta, Totok Heriyanto, said that Santika's 148 rooms had been fully reserved from Dec. 27 to Jan. 1, 2001.

He predicted that travelers would stay in Yogyakarta until Jan. 8.

Yogyakarta has around 400 large and small hotels, with some 9,500 rooms however, only four of them offer five-star rated accommodation and services.

Chief of Yogyakarta branch of PHRI, Stef. B. Indarto told the Post that the anticipated boom in guests during the festive season was expected to help ease the tariff war between medium and large hotels in the province.

"We also hope that our minimum target of gaining an average 40 percent of hotel occupancy rate for this year (2000) can be reached," he said. (44)