SIBU, Mar 6: Hotels in the central region will not resort to reducing room rates despite the outbreak of Covid-19 affecting the industry.
Sarawak Central Region Hotels Association chairman Johnny Wong said today that bringing down the room rate would not help much to increase occupancy rate.
“The outbreak of the virus has of course affected our business but the impact is not so great as we have traditionally had a low occupancy rate,” he said.
Wong explained that hotels in the region normally experienced less than 40 per cent occupancy due to limited tourist attractions.
He added that Indonesians working in oil palm plantations in the region were also making less trips to the town unlike previously when it was observed that they would come on weekends and stay a night or two at local hotels.
“We can only enjoy high occupancy rate when the various NGOs such as Chinese clan associations organise their meeting here which attract their counterparts from Peninsular Malaysia and even from China,” he added.
Wong said with the state barring all foreigners who had been to China, Korea, Iran, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Italy from entering over the past 14 days, it also made more sense for them not to reduce the room rate. —DayakDaily
