W

ith the 2018 Asian Games and Asian Para Games sure to lure thousands of tourists to Jakarta, the hotel industry is preparing for the influx of visitors by sprucing up buildings and improving services.

The city-owned Grand Cempaka Hotel in Cempaka Putih, Central Jakarta, for instance, is set to undergo a major renovation, predicted to require Rp 6.5 billion (US$4.8 million) from the city’s budget.

City-owned tourism company PT Jakarta Tourisindo (Jaktour), which manages the hotel, said the company would renovate 80 of 230 rooms with a Betawi-theme.

The company also plans to improve the rooms’ features, such as televisions and beds, as well as flooring to modernize the 21-year-old hotel.

“The project is expected to begin this month. We hope to finish the renovation two or three months before the Asian Games,” president director Jaktour G Jeffrey Zacharias Rantung, said recently.

In addition to the rooms, Jaktour plans to renovate the restaurant and prepare a catering service to provide meals for the event’s guests.

Grand Cempaka Hotel is located approximately 4 kilometers from the equestrian center in Pulo Mas, East Jakarta, and 6 kilometers from the velodrome in Rawamangun, East Jakarta.

Jaktour expects a full house during the 2018 Asian Games, which will be held in Jakarta and Palembang from Aug. 18 to Sept. 2 next year, followed by the Asian Para Games on Oct. 8 to Oct. 16.

While athletes would be housed in the Athletes’ Village in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, business director of Jaktour, Iskandar Zulkarnain, said he hoped the hotel would be filled with Asian Games guests, including former athletes.

More than 20,000 people are expected to come to Jakarta for the Games. According to data from property consultant Colliers International Indonesia, Jakarta currently has almost 40,000 hotel rooms.

Meanwhile, state-owned hotel enterprise PT Hotel Indonesia Natour, which also manages Grand Cempaka Hotel, is also readying four other hotels, namely D’Arcici Hotel, Asana Kawanua Hotel and Patra Jasa Hotel, in Cempaka Putih for the event.

Vice president of strategic partnerships for Natour, Panca Sarungu, said the group had organized training sessions to prepare hotel staffers to welcome Asian Games guests and tourists.

The hotels would also be decorated with Betawi ornaments to comply with a city regulation that required companies to decorate their places of businesses in such a manner, he said.

The head of the Jakarta Tourism and Culture Agency, Tinia Budiati, said the agency was still communicating with hoteliers and restaurant owners to remind them to decorate their places of business with Betawi icons.

Based on Gubernatorial Regulation No.11/2017, the city has eight icons, namely ondel-ondel (giant Betawi effigies), kembang kelapa (coconut trees made from paper), gigi balang sadariah (long-sleeved white shirts), kebaya kerancang (traditional Betawi blouses), Betawi batik, kerak telor (local omelette) and bir pletok (a beverage made from herbs and spices).

Tinia said in the coming year, 15 hotels, with ratings varying from two-stars to five-stars, would be built in the capital in preparation for the Games.

The agency is also cooperating with online travel service provider Traveloka to help tourists find lodgings through Jakarta-tourism.go.id.

Accommodation director of the Indonesian Asian Games Organizing Committee (INASGOC) JS. Ambarwati, said the body had received proposals from 120 hotels in Jakarta that sought to host Asian Games officials and guests.