Room bookings in Pokhara Hotels hit 100%

As the peak season for tourism nears, most of the hotels in Pokhara have received 100 percent booking. The hoteliers said they were having tough time managing rooms for October and November as the booking in many days of these months had hit 100 percent.Although it is not a new trend to have high occupancy during these months, the hoteliers said the booking this season was relatively higher than previous years during the same period.

Shyam Gurung of Shangrila Village Resort said the rooms were going to be completely occupied till mid-December. According to Gurung, the average booking ratio has crossed by 150 percent while considering time period between September to December. The resort has 61 rooms but the booking shows the demand of 91 rooms. The resort saw the occupancy up to 80 percent during lean period too.

Similarly, Pokhara Grande has also announced that the rooms for most of the days starting from September to mid-December were sold out. Kamal Sherchan, Sales Manager of the hotel said, “ The aggregate booking is above 100 percent and it shows the average occupancy rate is going to be higher than last year.”

Hoteliers are hopeful that this year was going to set the record in terms of occupancy and business if there were no bandas or strikes, “Most of the guests are in group and the booking has been made by 30-40 different groups,” added Sherchan.

Pokhara Grande has 119 rooms and is preparing to welcome Japanese, Chinese and European guest this season. It is now quite impossible to get rooms in popular hotels if there is no booking, according to Pashchimanchal Hotel Association Pokhara.

President of the association Biplav Paudel said, “The booking rate for September to December is really very encouraging.” Paudel who is also operating Hotel Barahi said the booking in the hotel in most of the days in October and November have crossed 100 percent. He said most of the guests arriving for upcoming peak season at his hotel were Chinese and Japanese.

According to the statistics of tourism ministry, the occupancy rate of five star hotels in Nepal was 77 percent and 86 percent in October and November respectively. However, the occupancy rate for Pokhara based five star hotels was limited to 52 and 66 percent respectively in October and November. With total number of tourist standard hotels above 450, Pokhara has capacity to accomodate up to 13,000 guests a day.

source:republica,25 August 2012