PUTRAJAYA: The hotel industry in Sabah suffered hefty\nlosses of RM11,550,605 million following the cancellations of 32,392 rooms for\nbookings from January 22 till March 16, 2020 after the outbreak of Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The amount recorded by Sabah was the second highest\nafter Kuala Lumpur which suffered losses amounting to RM23,021,301 million from\nthe cancellations of 55,050 rooms, the Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH)\nchief executive officer Yap Lip Seng said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, the hotel industry losses a total RM68,190,\n364 million from the cancellations of 170,085 rooms nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before that, the hotel industry has also complaint\nthat they were not addressed specifically and was given only one day to get\nready when the government imposed the movement control order effective from\nMarch 18 to 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, yesterday the government has gazetted that\nhotels and accommodations has been included among the essential services under movement\ncontrol order which before this they were not on the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, during a meeting in the Tourism Recovery\nAction Council (TRAC) with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MOTAC), Yap\nsaid MAH has sought for clarifications on hotel operations during this period,\nespecially hotels with in-house and long-stay guests and as to what services\nare allowed for these guests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to MOTAC, pending approval from the\nMalaysian National Security Council, hotels are allowed to operate on limited\nservices, that includes allowing in-house guests whom had checked-in (before 18\nMarch 2020) to stay until its intended check-out date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In-house guests however, are advised to remain in\nthe room throughout the movement control period. Other services in the hotel on\nthe other hand, are not allowed to operate except for food and beverages but\nonly for room service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No new check-ins are allowed from March 18 to 31 for\nall, including local Malaysians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe cancellation of bookings represents the\ncurrent impact caused by the Covid-19 but we are more concerned with the loss\nof demand for the coming months. We foresee that the losses will double by end\nof the year,\u201d Yap said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
MAH also presented a series of proposals for the\nsecond economic stimulus, partly to assist tourism rebound but more focused on\neasing cash flow of industry stakeholders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key proposals include reduction of employers\u2019\ncontribution to EPF, increasing discount for electricity to 30 per cent,\nextending the discount for water, waiver of quit rent and assessment for\ntourism properties and also a monthly payroll subsidy for employees earning\nRM2,000 and below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are also repeating our call for the minister to\nreview the rate of tourism tax to RM1 from existing rate of RM10, which is\nwithin the power of the Minister (of Finance) under the Tourism Tax Act 2017,\u201d\nYap added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proposals are to address current burden faced\nby the industry, as well as to plan ahead mid and long term for tourism\nrecovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apart from requests presented to the government,\nMAH is also pursuing negotiations with local service providers and suppliers to\nhotels, to extend a fair discount to hotels for this period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are in talks with key vendors such as Astro, for a reduction in fees and discount for the period up to December 2020. Hotels are currently paying them for empty rooms and services not utilised,\u201d Yap said.-HS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PUTRAJAYA: The hotel industry in Sabah suffered hefty losses of RM11,550,605 million following the cancellations of 32,392 rooms for bookings from January 22 till March 16, 2020 after the outbreak of Covid-19. The amount recorded by Sabah was the second highest after Kuala Lumpur which suffered losses amounting to RM23,021,301 million from the cancellations of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}