As General Manager (GM), Ari Sulistiari has the determination to emulate Kartini’s spirit in managing two hotels, namely Inna Bali Heritage and Inna Sindhu Beach & Resort, Sanur. Both hotels with different characters make her have to manage time wisely so that she always gets updated tourism developments. “Fortunately, currently there is technology that makes it easier for us to communicate. Honestly, I have to be smart in managing my time, where in a week three days are allocated for Inna Bali Heritage and three days left for Sindhu Beach, and with limited time we still communicate,” she said on Tuesday (Apr 26).

Today, women play a lot of roles in the world of tourism. It means that Kartini’s spirit is in the world of tourism. The spirit must be rekindled, so that more and more women appear and play a role. “I continuously encourage all staff, even though the hotel’s revenue has not been maximized yet. Although there has been a bit of leeway from the government that guests can arrive without having to quarantine and make it easier for VoA and without PCR tests and guests have started arriving, at our hotel there has only been a little movement,” she added.

Nevertheless, the enthusiasm of the workers continuously burn and never fade to maintain this gradually recovering tourism. The staff continues to be encouraged because the needs of daily life, there are children and wives or husbands who need us to continuously provide revenue for their daily needs. “We have been splashed by foreign guests and they are mostly in Sindhu Beach. And now the occupancy has risen to 40 percent. In the past, before the pandemic, foreign guests made many bookings through Online Travel Agents (OTA), but so far it has not been maximized, so domestic still dominates,” she said.

However, Ari Sulistiari further explained that for Inna Bali Heritage, the occupancy only reaches 30 percent because the government regulation was issued at the end of March. They are mostly domestic tourists from outside the region, such as Lombok, Jakarta and several other big cities on the Island of Java. “We have explored Surabaya, Banyuwangi and Malang to promote. While at Inna Sindhu, we have future projection that bookings are almost 60 percent. Yesterday, we also made contracts with domestic and overseas agents,” she added.

More foreign tourists staying at Inna Sindhu Beach Sanur are repeater guests with an average length of stay of 14 days, while some others even up to three months. They are mostly from Europe. “Our promotion at Inna Bali Heritage continues to take advantage of social media. We have a wedding, we have MICE events. While Sindhu Beach has typical and different guests who are more repeaters. So, we contacted again the guests whose contact numbers are still in our record,” said the woman who has been in the tourism industry since 1989. (BTN/015)