Heaptalk, Jakarta – In the middle of the Covid19 outbreak that has lasted more than one semester left a significant impact on the hotel industry. Most of them are still struggling to reopen and reach the minimum occupation level. Simultaneously, the other, like some hotel chain and hotel aggregator application company, decided to close their operation due to the severe cash flow to keep them survive.
It was mostly affected by the orbicular mindset that customers prefer to stay at home instead of going outside for sleeping over or arranging the MICE event (meeting, incentives, conference, and exhibition) in a hotel. Also, the local government policy that restricted hotel operations to prevent the spread of the virus. Plus, there is a lot of uncertainty about the national economic stability that puts people reluctant to spend their money and shift it into more prioritize like daily foods, health, self-protection, and sanitation. And these mostly the main factors in bringing hotel-chain into a ‘deadly valley.’
The Dafam Hotel Group Network felt the same thing as the hotel operator of a total of 23 hotel chains in Indonesia had experienced a significant impact. Andhy Irwan, CEO of PT Dafam Hotel Management, said that the decline in visits to the hotels he manages has occurred by 15% in all Dafam hotel units in Indonesia.
“Almost at some point, there has been a decline. As in Surabaya, Cilacap, and Pekalongan, it reaches up to 10 – 20%. While the most impactful drop felt by Dafam Bali and Lombok that reach up to 50%,” said Andhy as cited from Kontan.
This decline took place continuously for approximately three months in the first phase of COVID. As a result, throughout the first semester, Dafam, under the issuer of PT Dafam Property Indonesia Tbk (DFAM), published a net loss of Rp. 11.5 billion during the first semester of 2020, even though in the same period last year, the company recorded a profit of Rp. 2.5 billion.
This poor performance was caused by the decline in company revenue during the first half of this year. It was customary during the slum situation. Moreover, local government on all Dafam’s operations area simultaneously applies regulation to restrict people mobilization, for instance, to work from home, stay at home, large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), rules on community activities, and other regulations.
As cited in the financial reports, during the first semester of 2020, Dafam Property posted revenues of IDR 35.94 billion, a decrease of 56.15% compared to the first semester of 2019, which amounted to IDR 81.97 billion.
The hotel business line, which is the largest contributor to its performance, recorded a significant decline in revenue. The income from the hotel business was recorded at Rp 19.11 billion, down 51.8% compared to the same period last year. Then, the real estate line also fell with revenue of Rp. 8.9 billion during the first semester of 2020. This number fell 66.61% compared to the first semester of 2019, which amounted to Rp. 26.67 billion.
Apply Adaptive Strategy
To overcome the deficit, Dafam is focusing on two things, running existing business operations align with the current Health protocols while being supported by technology innovation, and innovating other business potentials that property business can deliver.
Billy Dahlan, as the principal director of Dafam Group, explains that substantially the management is now providing daily operations with health protocols like maintaining adequate sanitation. Other concerns are by equipping operations with an understanding of self-hygiene, including applying a prior rule always to keep social distance, provided the body with hand-glove, face-shield, mask, and the thermo gun. And in advance, the management is presenting the service improvement to hack the everyday services.
“In terms of service, we have also made a lot of contactless improvements, wherefrom the customer side they can order food, books, deliver compliance, and other activities through their smartphones. So there is a minimal possibility for customers to make contact so that it can minimize the spread, “said Billy.
It indicates that Dafam, who has struggled initially, seems quite agile in reading both the gaps and the existing potentials. They still focus on improving customer experience, namely through an integrated information system with the customer’s device while staying through mobile or web-based.
Meanwhile, from the employee side, Dafam has also improved based on operational shifts in which Dafam employees spend a lot of their activities outside the hotel, due to work regulations that limit worker attendance to not more than 50%. Thus, quickly the organization cooperating with AJAR releases an online learning platform, where the employee can learn about the hospitality curriculum that adopting a global standard packaged into online courses.
About AJAR, it is a Cloud LMS that is designed based on customer-centric and focuses on providing the best hospitality experience class.
“It’s called a Learning Management System (LMS) for hospitality. In it, there are a lot of hotel management learning materials such as food and beverage services, managing MICE, customer experience, public speaking, to tourism services. So when workers are on a working schedule from home ( WFH), they can fill their spare time by joining these online classes so that they can improve their self-skills,” said Billy.
Thus, Dafam is optimistic that he will still record exciting achievements for the following phases. Later on, Dafam can focus on maximizing revenue and carrying out escalation based on a national scale, and then there is the possibility of exploring the international segment. This year, Dafam Hotel Management targets to build seven new hotels in Jakarta, Kalimantan, Central Java, and Yogyakarta, with an 85 percent occupancy rate.
