Hotel occupancies in Penang

MFA | February 16, 2010 | 0 Comments

GEORGE TOWN: Most resort and city hotels on Penang island enjoyed about 65% occupancy rate last month compared with 55% in the same period in 2009, said Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH), Penang Chapter president Marco Battistotti.

“In the final quarter of 2009, the occupancy rate at most of the 37 hotels in Penang, which are MAH members, stood at about 70%, an increase of 2% from the previous corresponding period,” he told StarBiz.

“For resort hotels, about 55% of the guests last month were from overseas while the remainder were locals,” he said. “For city hotels, about 55% of the guests were domestic travellers while the remainder were from abroad.”

Battistotti said the recently launched direct flight to Chennai, India, by AirAsia helped to secure a lot of bookings for March and April for both resort and city hotels.

“MAH will continue to work with airlines, airport authorities, and both the state and federal governments to ensure that there would be more direct flights to Penang in the future,” he said.

Battistotti said MAH was confident that occupancy rate for Penang hotels this year would hit 65% compared with about 59% in 2009.

“In Penang, there is still a need for some 3,000 more hotel rooms over the next five years. At present, there are just under 10,000 hotel rooms here,” he said.

Hard Rock Hotel Penang achieved 70% to 80% occupancy rate for December and January.

However, Golden Sands and Rasa Sayang Resorts projected a slightly different outlook for the first quarter.

“Due to slower bookings, we expect the occupancy rates at both resorts in the first quarter to fall behind the corresponding period of 2009,” said director of communications Suleiman Tunku Abdul Rahman.

“But we hope there will be a last-minute pickup in bookings, as Golden Sands has just been renovated,” he said.

Cititel Penang sales and marketing director Vincent Ng said the hotel was expecting about five-percentage point increase in the occupancy rate for the first quarter from 52% achieved in the previous corresponding quarter.

He said its first-quarter projection was based on its occupancy rate for last month, which stood at 56.9% against 50.1% in January 2009.

“The occupancy rate for the New Year holidays (Dec 31-Jan 2) closed higher at 73.8% against 56.5% recorded in the same period a year earlier.

“The occupancy rate for Chinese New Year 2010 (from the eve till the third day) is expected to pick up and we expect to close at about 80% against 70.7% in 2009,” Ng said.

Meanwhile, Hard Rock Hotel director of sales Betty Lim said the hotel had achieved 70% to 80% occupancy rate for December and January due to visitors from Finland and Australia.

“For February, we are looking at about 60% occupancy rate as we have substantial bookings from domestic visitors.

“Overall, for the first quarter, we expect to achieve a 65% occupancy rate, which is within our target,” she said.

G Hotel director of sales Kevin Cheah said the hotel expected to enjoy an occupancy rate of about 80% this month and next because of the Chinese New Year and bookings from tour groups from Chennai, India.