The industry is already running on massive losses due to low occupancy rates throughout 2020 until now.
Compounding matters is that there is little visibility in sight of when movement and travel bans will be lifted due to the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic resulting from new highly transmissible and airborne variants.
Like many businesses that face challenging times, mergers and acquisitions deals involving hotels are popping up as owners opt to sell out rather than incur more losses. Meanwhile opportunistic buyers with fat wallets are scouring the scene.
Listings of hotels for sale in Malaysia have jumped 40% year-to-date due to rising interest from both local and overseas investors, says Previndran Singhe of Zerin Properties, adding that prices for hotel properties have dropped by as much as 35% as compared to pre-lockdown times.
THE past one year saw a remarkably high number of hotel owners making the tough decision to shut down their business for good. While hotels including G City Club Hotel Kuala Lumpur and Holiday Inn Resort Penang in Penang were shuttered permanently, several others were closed temporarily, until people are allowed to travel again.
Just last week, Hotel Equatorial Penang, citing huge losses, announced that it planned to cease operations before March 31.
“Since last year, we have tracked about 90 hotels that had closed either temporarily or permanently,” says The Malaysian Association of Hotels CEO Yap Lip Seng. MAH’s data is from announcements or based on third-party reports.
Published on: Sunday, January 31, 2021
By: Malay Mail
Credit: matta.org.my
Kuala Lumpur: The National Tourism Policy (NTP) launched just last month has failed to address many issues faced by industry players in the country who are struggling to survive the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta).
Matta president Datuk Tan Kok Liang
(pic) said the government’s 10-year tourism roadmap launched last December 23 did not address travel challenges under the new norm, nor provide a clear plan for the next three years to reinvigorate the tourism industry that has been crippled by the coronavirus.
Tuesday, 26 Jan 2021 04:57 PM MYT
BY JERRY CHOONG
DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng speaks during a press conference at Wisma DAP in George Town January 7, 2021. Picture by Sayuti Zainudin
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KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 Former finance minister Lim Guan Eng said the federal government still has not grasped the severity of the problems facing the local hotel and tourism industry that was on the verge of collapse.
Instead, he suggested that the Perikatan Nasional administration under Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin appeared to be more focused on pursuits such as an Emergency proclamation and suspending Parliament.