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Hotel Industry |
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The Pakistani hotel industry, particularly the handful of international
chains, is heavily dependent on foreign-induced business such as airline
crew, transit air travelers and foreign and local guests of
multinationals operating in the country. The primarily business of
hotels in Pakistan, like elsewhere, is to fill the rooms which not only
contributes major share to their overall revenue but to also supplement
the income through increased sales of food and beverage. It is also
dependent on walk-in traffic at one of many restaurants that these
chains house. In the end, however, room occupancy rate is regarded as
the benchmark to evaluate the performance of hotel as it singly makes
all the difference between making or breaking. The ripples of the post-September 11 events were felt all over and Pakistan was no exception. The turning of the country into the frontline state in the US-led campaign against terrorism starting with the war in neighboring Afghanistan took a heavy toll on Pakistani hotel industry. According to a source in one of the international chains in Karachi, prior to September 11 the average room occupancy rate at his hotel was a comfortable over 70 per cent which was drastically reduced to non-economical levels of 40 per cent in November and stayed there for next few months. However, the source claimed, that the competitors took a much worse battering as their important room occupancy rates dropped to an highly uneconomical level of 15-20 per cent. |
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