Indon hotels must work hard, think smart for revenue increase and online bookings

Indonesian hoteliers are optimistic about increasing revenues by 10% and expect a considerable rise in bookings from online sources by 2016 but realise they will have to work hard for that increase and adopt better operating processes and newer technologies.

This was one of the key findings that came out of the ‘Driving Hotel Revenue – Indonesia Summit’, organised by IDeaS Revenue Solutions, attending by more than 200 leading Indonesian hospitality professionals.

“The outlook for the Indonesian hotel sector was largely positive at the summit, however what became clear was that a 10% revenue growth (or more) wasn’t just going to fall into every hotel operators lap. Hoteliers need to enhance their understanding and approach to revenue management so that properties are pricing themselves correctly,”’ said Adwien Dhanu, President, Jayakarta Hotels & Resorts.

“Given the current issues around oversupply, the government should look to curb new development until occupancy levels recover and more work also needs to be carried out to improve tourism infrastructure generally including traffic management in the Legian area.”

“The ‘Driving Hotel Revenue – Indonesia Summit’ was a timely reminder of the potential opportunities and challenges faced by local hoteliers.

“While there are fast maturing hotel markets like Jakarta, Bali, Surabaya and Bandung in Indonesia, where maneuvering new hotel projects can be precarious, I believe opportunities in this vast archipelago are still plentiful but one must be observant and thorough,” said Rio Kondo, Vice President Development Indonesia & Malaysia, Accor.

In addition to overall revenue growth, another area expected to deliver significant benefits to Indonesian hoteliers is the growth in digital hotel bookings, with the summit attendees predicting that bookings from online sources would increase by 40% by 2016.

“It is important that Indonesian hoteliers grasp these changing booking patterns and are able to capitalise on the expected strong growth on this area through having the right strategies and systems in place to determine the best rate for their rooms at any given time and to be able to get these to market in a timely manner,” said Philip Stanley, Regional Directorof Sales, IDeaS – aSAS Company.

Although the overall outlook for the Indonesian hotel sector is positive, the summit did also look at key challenges faced by local hoteliers with 70% of the 200 hotel professionals in attendance highlighting that ‘increased competition from global hotel chains’ and ‘an excess of hotel rooms currently on the market’ were the two biggest issues to be faced by Indonesian hoteliers in the coming years.