Hotel bookings down for November
KATHMANDU, NOV 10 -
Hotel bookings for November have dropped slightly, but receipts are expected to maintain course due to a tariff hike, said hoteliers. Five-star hotel executives reported that the fall in occupancy could pull down the figures for autumn (September-November), the country’s peak tourist season. They said that occupancy had been good in October.
A tariff hike implemented in September is expected to boost revenue despite a projected 2-3 percent decline in occupancy this season. Almost all the hotels reported record occupancy and earnings in November last year. Kathmandu’s five-star properties had hiked the room rates by 15-25 percent in September. According to them, a drop in business and corporate clients this season has contributed to the dip in occupancy.
Bharat Joshi, resident manager at the Hotel Yak & Yeti, said that they had confirmed reservations of 81 percent for November and is likely to end at 84 percent. Last November, the hotel had more than 88 percent occupancy. Its occupancy in October was 88 percent, up 5 percent.
“However, December booking is very nominal.” As of now, we have only 40 percent booking for December. He said that the MICE segment was discouraging this season. “We sold 695 and 301 room nights for foreign conferences in October and November respectively, but this year it dropped to 315 and 201 respectively,” Joshi said, adding that improved trekkers movement, however, has fulfilled the gap this season. This October, the Yak & Yeti earned Rs 64.5 million in room revenue, compared to Rs 55 million last year. The average room rate of the hotel is US$ 98.
According to the Shangri-La Hotel, October occupancy this year was 87 percent, up 6 percent. However, November occupancy is likely to drop slightly this year. The hotel is likely to see a 2-3 percent drop in occupancy this November, said Senior General Manager Raju Bikram Shah. “Overall, we are likely to close at 90 percent occupancy year on year.”
Shah added that due to a hike in the tariff this season, revenue is expected to jump despite a drop in overall occupancy. British visitors are the major clients of the Shangri-La followed by French and Australians.
Another five-star property, Hotel Annapurna, said its October occupancy was 77 percent while the figure for November is likely to be the same.
Raj Bikram Shah, sales and marketing director of the Hotel Annapurna, said a drop in the number of European and Indian clients this season could be the contributing factor for the fall in occupancy. “We are likely to see a 10 percent fluctuation in occupancy this season,” he said.
According to government statistics, five-star hotels had 85.96 percent and 77.43 percent room occupancy in November and October respectively last year. The eight five-star properties in Kathmandu produced 134,225 rooms in September-November out of which 104,411 were occupied last year.
Nepal witnessed a negative growth in monthly tourist arrivals for the first time since June 2009. Arrivals via air dropped 7.3 percent to 67,901 in October, the peak tourist season.
The unexpected drop in arrivals has been attributed to a substantial decline in the number of visitors from the South Asian and European markets. The number of tourists from South Asia and Europe dropped notably by 28.5 percent and 17.5 percent respectively in October.
The South Asian market accounts for 33 percent of the total arrivals, followed by the European market (nearly 30 percent).
Meanwhile, hoteliers and travel trade entrepreneurs said although the country saw a decline in European visitors, the market was corrected by improved arrivals from the US and UK. The US Department of State removed Nepal from its negative travel advisory in December last year, citing improved political conditions in Nepal, and it could be the factor for the increased arrivals from the US market, said travel trade entrepreneurs.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
