R

eal estate developer PT Agung Podomoro Land Tbk, says it will build four more upscale hotels following its successful debut in the hotel business last month.

Agung Podomoro Land executive director Veri Y. Setiady said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the new hotels would be managed and operated by Accor Indonesia, as is the Pullman Jakarta Central Park, the company’s first hotel, in West Jakarta.

The new hotels comprise the Pullman Hotel & Resort to be built in Vimala Hills, Ciawi, West Java; the Ibis Style in Podomoro City in West Jakarta; and the Ibis Style in Green Lake Sunter in North Jakarta, Veri said.

“We are still in the process of feasibility studies. We expect that all hotels will be operational by early 2014,” Veri said following the signing of a cooperation agreement with Accor Indonesia.

Pullman Hotels & Resorts in Ciawi will be built on an 800,000-square-meter plot and include 170 rooms, 30 villas, a botanical garden and a children’s theme park.

“It will become the first upscale Accor brand in Vimala Hills,” he said.

Indra W. Antono, the real estate developer’s marketing director, said the Vimala Hills Pullman would resemble Balinese resorts. “Jakartans will not have to fly to Bali on the weekend because Ciawi will have a great resort, too, only one hour from Jakarta,” Indra said.

In addition, the Ibis Style in Podomoro City and Green Lake Sunter would be built with 180 and 200 rooms respectively, he said.

Veri said all the hotels would be built to international standards for the meeting, incentives, convention and exhibition (MICE) industry to attract business visitors and to meet high demand for convention facilities in Jakarta.

Agung Podomoro chose Accor to operate the hotels as it had operated a large network of hotels in Indonesia for several years, he said.

Accor operates Pomodoro’s Pullman Jakarta Central Park, which had an 85 percent occupancy rate in its first month of operation, he added.

“Three-hundred-seventeen rooms and a 5000-square-meter ballroom facility at the Pullman Central Park is not enough to support business and tourism activities in Jakarta. The Ibis Style hotels will help accommodate more people,” he said.

Gerard Guillouet, vice president of Accor Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, said that the collaboration would make Jakarta more attractive to corporate business and business leisure clients in the future.

Accor, which operates 4,203 hotels worldwide, first entered the Indonesian market in 1993 and currently operates 44 hotels in 18 cities across the nation.

The company opened six new hotels in Indonesia this year: the Pullman Bali Legian Nirwana in February, the Novotel Bangka Golf and Convention Center in March, the All Seasons Bali Denpasar in June, the All Seasons Yogyakarta in June, the Mercure Bali Kuta Harvestland on June, and the Pullman Jakarta Central Park.

Accor hotels boast an average occupancy rate around 75 percent. (nfo)