insidesumatera.com | tourism & lifestyle magazine

Entering the fasting and the festive period in the Visit Indonesia Year 2008– the government has decided that both shopping malls as well hotels should operate 2 times a week for 5 hours on their generators, or equivalent to 40 hours a month. If this is a rumor, gossip or even a fact which is confirmed or not, who can say? Of course, these blackouts are not something new here in Medan, it is part of our daily life, on the contrary to the hotels and shopping malls in Jawa and Bali. Most of the hotels are already running on an average of the required number of hours on our hotel generators–even without the policy. However, here comes an additional of 40 hours–which really rubbed salt into the wound. A standard answer given to the media by the hotel public relation or marketing manager would be that the hotel is already implementing energy saving schemes such as; switching the air conditioning off in the offices or certain areas of the hotel after 7 in the evening, reducing on garden lighting or switch them off, using only energy saving light bulbs and so the list goes on and on. Yes, a standard answer. What do you expect us to mention? That we disagree with the decision? Of course we do! The increase in operational expenses will be astronomical. How much more energy do we need to save and cut without making our guests feel any of the consequences? What should we do? Maybe I should be asking this to the readers of this magazine? What would you recommend? Would it be prudent to charge an additional Rp 300.000 on top of the current room price only on those days that I have to switch compulsory to the hotel generators? If people protest, we can always say that airlines are now as well charging a fuel surcharge and unfortunately we should be doing the same. It does not make any sense at all, but if you want to debate about it, it actually does. Airlines do it, and none of us are protesting. Should I drop the price and offer rooms without air conditioning and hot water? Maybe my F&B team should start to create a romantic theme night every week–making it into candlelight dinners? Hotels will start cutting cost as much as possible, cutting here and there and in the end the guest are complaining that the service has gone down. So the management stands at a dilemma of increasing or decreasing the price–go for volume or for prestige. And keep in mind that this is all happening in the year that we are striving for a growth in tourism in Indonesia. Hotels or malls do not want to bare all the cost, of course. They will look for ways to cover their expenses, find new sources of income. They will most likely increase the service/maintenance charge in the mall, parking, and maybe even the shops rental. In return, the shopkeepers will start to increase their prices to cover these increases. In the end, no one is coming because parking is too high, food court will be too expensive and shops only good for window shopping. As the last measurement, we will have a great sale and if it doesn’t work, here comes the closure of the shop–bankrupt--because we cannot handle the operating cost which will lead to an increase in unemployment and a country gone down the drain. My Cinderella ending, even during these dark days of the energy crises, my hotel is going ahead with upgrading her services and is commencing the renovation–we are not cutting but improving our facilities and services for you. Every movie is a different story, but it has only one general theme…never give up!!!