Hotel occupancy not affected by home-sharing
KOTA KINABALU: Shortterm accommodations (STAs) or home-sharing can co-exist with star-rated hotels and budget hotels as they cater for different categories of tourists, said Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (SATTA) president Datuk Seri Winston Liaw.
Disagreeing that the occupancy of hotels was affected by STAs, Liaw said budget hotels had to maintain and upkeep their facilities and finishing, as many were found to be rundown with no plan for refurbishment.
“Tourists prefer to stay in STAs with better reviews.”
Meanwhile, Liaw said star-rated hotels did offer different concepts as well as full services like food and beverage, laundry cleaning, gymnasium and other facilities to tourists.
However, he said a family may opt for STAs as they could all stay in a single unit rather than being assigned to different floors or separate rooms in a hotel.
“There is no sense of gathering when families sleep in different rooms when they go travel.
“This is not a matter of price of the accommodation.
“Many STAs are quite expensive compared to hotels as well.”
Liaw was commenting on a report about the call to regulate STAs by travel and hospitality stakeholders in Malaysia.
Malaysia Association of Hotels (MAH) chief executive officer Yap Lip Seng said a regulatory framework would ultimately benefit tourists as existing home-sharing operations had no independent check and balance, nor independent review or feedback system in place.
Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) president Datuk Tan Kok Liang said regulating STAs was a long overdue issue, adding that there has been much leakage in taxation when it came to this business.
Tan said encouraging STA operations, which was usually catered towards cost-conscious travellers, would have adverse effects in the long term.
He said tourist arrivals in the next few years was not expected to be on a double digit increase and hotels were recording lower occupancy rate due to loss in market share to cost-conscious and budget travellers.
If the scenario persisted, Tan said Malaysia might have difficulty in attracting hotel investments.
On the other hand, Malaysia Budget Hotel Association (MyBHA) president P.K. Leong said the growth of STA would be detrimental towards budget hotels in the country, adding that tourists who stayed at STAs did not pay the tourism tax.
In response, Liaw agreed that it was important to contribute tourism tax to government authorities.
On hotel investment, he said banks were unwilling to support hotel development in West Malaysia but that was not the case in Sabah.
He said tourists have different demands for their travel accommodation.
At present, he said Sabah, specifically Kota Kinabalu and Semporna, were still short of hotel rooms.
Liaw stressed the need to increase the number of accommodation in tandem with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment’s continuous effort in promoting Sabah in existing and new source countries such as China and Europe, and in view of the increasing number of flights coming to the state.
“We see that STAs can co-exist with star-rated hotels and budget hotels, as they cater for different categories of tourists.”