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Marriott International seeks to capitalize on travel recovery, demographic shifts
Rajeev Menon, president of Marriott International in the Asia Pacific excluding China, shared insight on the recovery of hotel occupancy in Indonesia and how the company seeks to grow in new destinations.
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Rajeev Menon, president of Marriott International for the Asia Pacific excluding China, poses for a photo. (Marriott International/-)
A
s travelers are eager to live out their pent-up wanderlust and explore the world, hotels are looking forward to improving occupancy rates.
Rajeev Menon, president of Marriott International in the Asia Pacific excluding China, spoke to The Jakarta Post’s Ruth Dea Juwita about the industry’s recovery in Indonesia and how his company is banking on more direct flights to grow in new destinations and on customer loyalty to compete with online travel agencies (OTAs).
Question: With the pandemic behind us, what is the current occupancy rate?
We saw full recovery back to 2019 numbers in the last quarter of 2022. Since then, we've been seeing double-digit growth, quarter-on-quarter, across most markets. It really depends when the countries open their borders, but the reality is, travel has [bounced back] very strongly in our part of the world.
Foreign direct investment [FDI] has been flowing into ASEAN countries in the last few years, and the middle class is also emerging. They want to travel, to experience the world, and they are starting to spend more.
For instance, back in 2019, the mix of Indonesian customers for us [at Marriott] was in the high 30s as a percentage. This year, 47 percent of our mix in our hotels across Indonesia is actually Indonesians, so it’s grown 17 percent since 2019. That tells you that it's the economic activity plus the middle-class desire to get out and about and travel the world that is really showing results.
