Hilton hotel chain steadily expanding operations in Indonesia

Hilton Worldwide, a US-based global hotel chain, has steadily been expanding its operations in Indonesia to tap new market opportunities in a hospitality industry that is thriving on the back of steady economic growth and the free visas being offered to the citizens of most of the countries in the world.

“We already have four properties under our management and eight others, which are under construction in Jakarta, Tangerang, Surabaya and Bali, will open within the next two years”, Hilton’s vice president for Southeast Asia and India William Costley told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

The four properties already in operation are the Double Tree by Hilton in Jakarta, the Hilton in Bandung, the Conrad and the Hilton Garden Inn, both in Bali.

Hilton, which manages more than 4,600 properties in 103 countries, is also looking for new opportunities in Lombok, Medan in North Sumatra, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan and Palembang in South Sumatra, Costley said.

It is mostly a matter of finding the right partner for promoting Hilton service standards because Hilton has many brands to fit in with different locations, he said.

“But we are always directly involved together with the owners in the process of designing and constructing every hotel we will manage and in training its human resources,” he added.

Costley said the steady growth of Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the ASEAN open skies policy would boost business travel and the whole hospitality industry in many other cities across the vast archipelago.

“We are quite excited about the prospect of the tourism industry, especially after the launching of the visa-free facility,” he said. “And I think the target of 20 million tourist arrivals in 2020 is not impossible.”