Traders Hotel Kuala Lumpur, which turned one on July 1, has bucked the industry norm and posted a gross operating profit (GOP) within the first month of its opening.
According to industry experts, hotels in Malaysia generally take about a year, at best about three months, to post GOP.
"Registering GOP within a month of opening is definitely out of the norm," one hotel expert said.
GOP is the cost of doing business or gross revenue (from rooms, food and beverage, laundry or business centre) minus cost of operations (wages, electricity and amenities).
"We managed to deliver GOP in the first month. We earned enough to pay all our
bills and still put money in the bank," general manager Reto Klauser said in an
interview with Business Times.
"(Our GOP) is in line with the operating philosophy of a Traders Hotel. The
operating profits should be above the industry norm and we are very pleased to
have delivered that expectation," he said, when asked about the GOP achieved by
the hotel.
It is understood that the industry average GOP for four-star hotels is 35 per cent.
On whether this meant being able to recoup the investment of RM290 million put in by its owners KLCC (Holdings) Sdn Bhd earlier than the 12- to 15-year target set a year ago, Klauser indicated that he preferred to maintain that target date.
Traders Hotel, a Shangri-La Group business hotel, is looking forward to achieving an average room rate (ARR) of slightly below RM300 and an average occupancy room of 70 per cent in 2007.
Occupancy is up from 65 per cent last year while ARR has remained unchanged.
Traders Hotel was able to achieve an enviable ARR and occupancy among four-star hotels in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre area despite initial challenges of creating awareness in the Traders brand.
"A year ago, many did not know what Traders Hotel was about and what to expect. The challenge was to get the word out, to explain the brand and explain what Traders Hotel Kuala Lumpur is," Klauser said.
He added that, today, its open-air rooftop SkyBar is well-known and talked about, which has helped motor the awareness about the hotel.
Sixty per cent of its guests are business people or free individual travellers while 25 per cent are those who come from the meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition market. The rest are the leisure crowd.
"Next year we expect to see more volume and plan to lift the price by about 10 per cent," Klauser said.
The hotel is owned by Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, a wholly-owned subsidiary of KLCC (Holdings).
Source : eHotelier
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