Hotel industry fears severe blow

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Aamir Shafaat Khan
KARACHI, Sept 20: Hotel industry leaders fear a massive decline in room occupancy to below 20 per cent and more strict travel advisories by the foreign missions in the aftermath of a powerful bomb blast outside the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday in which at least 60 people were killed.

They said that the Islamabad blast would have severe impact on the entire hotel industry in the next five to six months. “The blast has definitely frightened foreigners as well as the local businessmen, but so far no massive check outs have been reported especially from the foreigners. They will return to their homeland on Sunday or Monday,” they added.

Pakistan Hotels Association Chairman Mustansar Zakir said that the room occupancy had been low between 30-45 per cent in Karachi and upcountry for the last six months in the back drop of political uncertainty, security situation in tribal areas and incidents of suicide attacks.

“The room occupancy likely to come down below 20 per cent in the next 15-20 days especially in Islamabad hotels,” he fears.

“Foreigners will definitely fly back to their homes after the cancellation and postponement of various events and conferences due to the blast,” he said.

The foreign missions of various countries, who had been issuing travel advisory note (TAN) for the last few months, will issue more strict advisories after Islamabad incident, he added.

The foreign missions have been cautioning their citizens to restrict their movement in the wake of deteriorating law and order situation in some of the cities declaring them highly unsafe to visit.

“I think that the foreigners will cancel or restrict travelling to Pakistan in upcoming months after this incident,” Mr Zakir said, adding that much however would depend on the law and order situation in coming days.

He said that usually foreigners’ presence in the hotels used to range between 20-22 per cent, but for the last six months their presence had come down to only one to two per cent.

The industry has been surviving on the domestic businessmen and travelers, he added.

Amin Hashwani of the Hashwani Group told Dawn that around two years back, the hotels’ room occupancy was almost cent per cent, but for the last one year it had dropped to about 50 per cent.

“I think the uncertain business climate will further hit the sentiments of the travelers and tourism, which had been at the bottom, will further suffer badly,” he observed.

He said that the share of business through tourism activities, which used to be 20 per cent in the hotels, had already fallen to zero after tensions in Northern Areas and FATA. However, the share of other business (events, functions, conferences and staying of domestic businessmen), which used to be 80 per cent in hotel business, would decline.

When asked to why the hotels had not reduced the rate of room charges and were still high despite low room occupancy for the last one year, Mr Amin said that the room rates had been cut down slightly keeping in view of demand and supply situation.

The attack on Marriott Hotel in Islamabad came hours after President Asif Ali Zardari delivered his first address to Parliament, which is just a few hundred metres away.

The hotel industry has been very sensitive to such incidents of terrorism and law and order situation in which not only the foreigners restrict their visits to the country, but also domestic travellers exercise caution.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/09/21/ebr1.htm