The Malaysian Insight

HOTEL bookings for the Chinese New Year period are lower than expected, after picking up during the year-end holidays when domestic tourism increased as Covid-19 movement restrictions eased.

Hoteliers said they were hoping for high occupancy rates from domestic travellers to continue after the year-end holidays, since this will be the third lunar new year amid the epidemic. Since international tourism is still restricted, local tourists remain hotels’ only lifeline.

Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) chief executive officer Yap Lip Seng said hotel bookings for Chinese New Year, which falls next week, are currently at about 40%.

“Hoteliers are holding out a last-minute hope that more people will decide to travel and book rooms at the last minute as the festival approaches.”

The first two days of the Chinese New Year fall on Tuesday and Wednesday, and hoteliers hope the public will take the opportunity to extend their weekend break for a vacation.

Yap said booking and occupancy rates increased after the lifting of the movement-control order (MCO) and the gradual move of states into phase 4 of the national recovery plan by October last year, whereby almost all economic activities as well as interstate travel was allowed.

From occupancy rates as low as single digits or 20% on average prior to phase 4, depending on location, rates shot up to as high as 60% during the holiday period at the end of last year. This was in Penang, while Langkawi, where a travel bubble for domestic and international tourists is in place, increased to 70%.

On average, occupancy rate at hotels over the Christmas and New Year holidays stood at 52%.

VTL with Singapore not driving room occupancy

Emmy Suraya Hussein, the president of the Malaysian Budget and Business Hotel Association (MyBHA), said larger hotels and resorts were the ones enjoying higher occupancy rates.

Small- and medium-sized hotels are still struggling, unless they are located by the sea or on islands.

“For the Chinese New Year period, it is the hotels at islands and beaches that are almost fully booked.

“We’re seeing this in the coastal areas of Pahang, Terengganu and Johor, where at Desaru, there is an 80% booking rate. The same also goes for Pulau Redang,” Emmy said.

She believes the higher rate in Johor may be a result of the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) arrangement between Singapore and Malaysia.

However, MAH’s Yap disagrees, saying that most hotels do not think the quarantine-free VTL scheme has contributed to increased hotel bookings so far, as these travellers tend to be those who travel for the purpose of meeting family.

“This group is not made up of leisure tourists, so the number (contributing to hotel occupancy) is insignificant,” he said.

The VTL between Singapore and Malaysia began on November 29, and saw a hiatus for about a month from late December till January 20 as part of measures to curb the spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant. It has since resumed.

Yap still hopes that Putrajaya and Singapore will expand the VTL programme. Instead of limiting it to Johor, he says it can also be extended to travel between Singapore and Penang, and with Sabah as well. Eventually, this would help the hotel industry in these states.

“And hopefully, by quarter three, we can have more quarantine-free international travel bubbles,” he added. – January 27, 2022.