Yogyakarta's big hotels expect brisk business

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)