0 Hotels fully booked for year-end holidays

Some hotels in Bali have seen all of their rooms booked for the year-end holiday as domestic and foreign tourists flock to the island to celebrate the New Year. In Kuta, the most popular area for tourists to celebrate New Year’s Eve, some hotels already have occupancy rates of 80 to 90 percent, but from this coming weekend until the first day of 2013, occupancy will reach 100 percent. In many of these hotels, especially the three-star hotels that are mushrooming in Kuta, most of the guests are domestic tourists. Kuta Station Hotel is one of the three-star hotels that will have 100 percent occupancy during the year end. 

“Currently, our occupancy is still less than 60 percent, but starting this Saturday [Dec. 29] until Jan. 1, all of our 132 rooms are booked,” Candy Juliani, the hotel’s assistant director of sales, said on Wednesday. “Seventy percent of our guests are domestic tourists from big cities, like Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya,” she told Bali Daily. Another three-star hotel in Kuta, Grand Istana Rama, at present has 89 percent occupancy. Starting this Thursday until Jan. 4, the hotel with 149 rooms located just across from Kuta Beach, had been fully booked, said Dinna Indah, the hotel’s marketing communications coordinator. 

“The composition between foreign and domestic guests is around fifty-fifty,” she added. The iconic Hard Rock Hotel currently has 80 percent of its 418 rooms occupied. “We will have 100 percent occupancy starting Dec. 31 until Jan. 4,” said the hotel’s marketing communications manager, Wangi Duarma Putri. Meanwhile, Harris Sunset Road Hotel, which is located around 20 minutes from the center of Kuta, recorded 85 percent occupancy on Christmas Day. Occupancy will reach 95 percent during the New Year celebrations. 

“Our occupancy rate will reach its peak from Dec. 29 to Jan. 1,” said public relations manager Adinda Ashrinintya. Many of the hotels are holding special events and serving special dinners for the New Year celebrations. The demand from some airlines to put on extra domestic flights also reflected the rising number of tourist arrivals in Bali this holiday season. “Some airlines have requested to run additional flights to Bali starting Dec. 22 until Jan. 5,” said Sherly Yunita, spokesperson for Angkasa Pura I, the company that manages Ngurah Rai airport. 

Extra flights have been requested by Garuda Indonesia, Wings Air, Batavia Air and Trans Nusa for routes between Bali and Jakarta, Surabaya, Labuan Bajo and Tambolaka. A total of 76 extra flights to and from Bali, with a total of 8,848 seats, have been granted, an increase of 192 percent on the same period last year. The latest data showed that on Dec. 24, there were 13,080 domestic passengers arriving at the airport, a rise of 14 percent compared to last year. Meanwhile, the number of foreign passengers arriving fell by 4 percent on last year to 8,843.

source : bali daily