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tate-run hotels have joined a new government-backed network in an attempt to increase their efficiency and competitiveness.

The network, dubbed the Hotel Indonesia Group (HIG), consists of Hotel Indonesia Natour; Patra Jasa, which is a subsidiary of oil and gas firm Pertamina; and Aerowisata, a subsidiary of national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia.

Indonesia Natour acts as the network leader, and the three enterprises started joint marketing efforts under one platform, hotelindonesia-group.com, in February to promote the 26 hotels they operate.

On Wednesday, state-owned pawnshop operator Pegadaian — which owns nine hotels — and temple operator Taman Wisata Candi — with one hotel — joined the network.

The total number of hotels in the network now stands at 36, which located in at least 20 cities and towns across Sumatra, Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and Papua.

Hotel Indonesia Natour president director Iswandi Said said its hotels had an average occupancy rate of 67 percent at the moment, an improvement from 50 percent last year, while hotels belonging to Patra Jasa, Aerowisata and Pegadaian had occupancy rates below 60 percent.

All the operators are targeting an occupancy rate of 70 percent next year through efficient marketing under the HIG network.

“When we market our hotels, we’ll ask our clients about the kind of hotel and location they want. We’ll give them the list of our members’ hotels. If one hotel is fully occupied, we can pass the clients on to other hotels,” Iswandi said. HIG hopes to expand to a total of 97 hotels branches in 2017. Iswandi said that target was realistic, considering there were 118 state enterprises at the moment, many of which had hotel units.

He said no changes would occur regarding the hotels’ operations and management following the network’s establishment and, unlike a holding company, the network used a profit-sharing scheme among its members.

State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno said the network would offer a “typical Indonesian hospitality” in line with international standards that would be realized with the assistance from Garuda Indonesia.

It would also benefit from lower operating costs, as its members had agreed to cooperate with several state-owned enterprises to supply staple products, such as logistics agency Bulog, holding firm Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia and water supplier Perum Jasa Tirta.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya lauded the synergy effort, saying it could help the government develop the tourism sector and achieve this year’s target of attracting 12 million foreign visitors.

The government also expects its free visa policy and various tourism promotions to lure more foreign tourists, with recent data pointing in the right direction.

Figures from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) show that almost half of this year’s target has been achieved during the January to July period with 5.86 million foreign tourists.

Chinese topped the list of foreign visitors in July, followed by Australians, Singaporeans, Malaysians and Japanese.

The Tourism Ministry has embarked on several promotional tours to “secondary cities” in China — outside Beijing and Shanghai — in the past few months to attract new visitors.

Garuda Indonesia, meanwhile, has opened new routes to nine secondary cities in China, namely Chengdu, Chengzhou, Chong Qin, Harbin, Jinan, Kunming, Ningbo, Shenyang and Xian.

According to the BPS, the visitors’ average length of stay stood at 1.81 days in July, a decrease of 0.09 days compared to the same period in 2015.

Bali remained the preferred destination, as it posted the highest length of stay with 3.01 days, followed by Jambi with 2.36 days and Jakarta with 2.02 days.