Colombo City hotels lament the loss of millions due to CHOGM
- Tuesday, 19 November 2013
The government directed all star class hotels in the Colombo City not to allocate rooms to any outsiders except for persons attending the CHOGM and related events.
Colombo City Hotels Association Chairman M. Shanthi Kumar has been quoted in the media saying the average occupancy rates of the hotels in Colombo remained far below expectations during CHOGM.
Many star-class hotels in the city including Taj Samudra, Cinnamon Grand and even several relatively small hotels carried out expensive refurbishments targeting CHOGM.
“At the peak, from November 15th to 16th, the average occupancy rate was 55 percent. The average occupancy during 10th to 13th was at 30 percent and during 13th to 14th it was around 40 percent. This was far below our expectations,” Shanthi Kumar was quoted as saying in the local media.
Although the original expectation was to receive booking for a minimum of 4,000 city hotel rooms, only 2,000 to 2,100 rooms were occupied during the event.
Another hotelier on conditions of anonymity has said, the average occupancy at his hotel would have been around 75 -80 percent if not for the CHOGM.
The hotelier has said that his hotel had lost Rs.80 million of business due to CHOGM.
Hoteliers have also lamented that most of the mega tourism events organized by the government and government agencies have been destructive to the hotel business in the Colombo City.
