Hyatt Regency resumes operations

Hyatt Regency Kathmandu resumed operations from today as the agitating workers have withdrawn their protest with immediate effect.
The stock-market listed hotel confirmed that its operations have resumed but also claimed that the workers’ act was unlawful. The protesting workers have returned to work from last evening after the Labour and Employment Office stepped in to find a feasible solution to their grievances with the management.
All Nepal Hotel, Casino and Restaurant Workers Association decided to withdraw its protest on the request of Labour and Employment Office in Kathmandu, the association said – in a press note – adding that they had started protest against the management accusing the latter of curtailing facilities of workers and ‘misbehaving’ Indian personnel working at higher management level.
The protest had affected normal operations of the five-star hotel. In the eve of Visit Nepal Year 2020, the hotel management had declared to close the hotel for indefinite period, if the protest continues. Although the workers have returned on their duties, the hotel will not take any reservation for a few more days, according to head of Human Resource Department of Hyatt Govinda Pariyar, who also accepted that the hotel received a letter from the labour office this morning only.
The association today said that all workers returned to work from yesterday evening itself even though the management has not responded to their demands. “We decided to withdraw all our protest programmes and ask all the workers to return to work after Labour and Employment Office assured us to mediate with the management toward addressing our demands,” the chairperson of the authorised trade union at the hotel Mukti Dahal said.
The hotel management has blamed the trade union for being the puppet of the people, who want to close the hotel or ever. Blaming the hotel management for wanting to grab the government land, the trade union said that they fear the protest could be used to escape from the blame.
The trade union has ben blaming the hotel management of confiscating the government share in the hotel. The government’s stake in Taragaon Regency Hotels – which owns the hotel – has now come down to around 10 per cent from nearly 40 per cent, when the hotel resumed operation in late 1990s.
Currently, there are around 400 workers employed in Hyatt Regency that has 280 rooms, including seven suites and 35 regency club rooms. Hyatt Regency Kathmandu has been serving guests in Nepal since 2000. It is one of the Nepal Stock Exchange-listed hotels in Nepal.
Though the hotel management has been claiming that the government’s share has lowered because of its failure to buy rights shares issued to all shareholders, the trade union has been claiming that the management is trying to capture the government land. The hotel management, on the other hand, blames the trade union of being puppet of some unscrupulous people, who wants to gran the land and plot it and sell as land price has appreciated over 1000 times from the 1990s, when the hotel was constructed.

Listed hotels post handsome profits

The listed hotels – though they are only three in number – have posted record profits in the third quarter on increased arrivals and occupancy, though the average daily expenditure of tourists has been on decline.
Among the three listed hotels on the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse), which have published their unaudited financial reports for the third quarter ending mid-April, Soaltee Hotel and Taragaon Regency Hotels posted profits, whereas Oriental Hotels witnessed decline in profit.
Soaltee Hotel – according to its unaudited third-quarter report – posted Rs 231 million net profit, some 52.35 per cent increase compared to the same period last fiscal year. During the same period last fiscal year, Soaltee Hotel had posted net profit of Rs 151.64 million.
Soaltee Hotel earned revenues totaling Rs 1.31 billion, up by 16.61 per cent year-on-year while its total expenses amounted to Rs 1.02 billion, up by 8.77 per cent only, according to the report of the hotel  that claimed that it had been marketing aggressively to increase its occupancy in the fourth quarter in the key source markets including India.
Likewise, profit of another share market listed hotel – Taragaon Regency Hotels – has jumped by 29.47 per cent before bonus and tax in the third-quarter, compared to the same period in the last fiscal year. According to the unaudited financial statement published by the hotel – mandatory under regulatory order – it has posted a net profit of Rs 356.57 million in the third quarter of the current fiscal year, whereas Taragaon Regency Hotels had posted a net profit of Rs 275.40 million in the third quarter of the last fiscal year.
Taragaon Regency Hotels’ revenues – according to the third quarter report – increased by 14.28 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1.04 billion, whereas revenues totalled Rs 915.7 million. Likewise, Taragaon Regency Hotels’ paid-up capital stood at Rs 1.88 billion including Rs 777 million in reserves, the report reads, adding that its revenue swelled due to a rise in tourist arrivals and effective marketing strategy. “It may face competition in the coming days with the proliferation of five-star hotels in Nepal prompted by an improving political and business environment.”
However, Oriental Hotels, which operates the five-star Radisson Hotel in Kathmandu, reported a net profit rise of 6.32 per cent in the third quarter of the current fiscal year, according to the hotel’s unaudited report of the third quarter. “Oriental Hotels posted a net profit of Rs 207.45 million after tax, up from Rs 195.11 million in the same period in the last fiscal year,” the report reads, adding that its revenue collection stood at Rs 876 million. “Oriental Hotels’ profit growth slowed in the third quarter due to an increase in expenses as it had renovated 40 of its rooms.”
The fourth hotel – Yak N Yeti – that was earlier listed at the Nepse is no more in the share market since last half decade.
Nepal has lately witnessed a large number of hotels due to increasing number of tourists, though the tourist spending has not been increasing. “It will be challenging, if tourist arrivals do not match the increasing number of hotels lately,” Oriental Hotels writes in its report.
Tourist arrivals crossed the one-million mark for the first time in 2018, with 1.17 million foreign visitors travelling into the country, but their spending has plummeted to a seven-year low to $44, according to Hotel Association Nepal (HAN). “The average spending was $54 per day in 2017, whereas in 2003 – during the Maoist insurgency – the per day tourist spending hit a record $79.1.”
Last year, Nepal received 1.17 million tourists and earned a record Rs 70 billion in foreign exchange,” according to the statistics of HAN. “The previous year, the country had welcomed 940,218 foreign visitors and earned Rs 65.8 billion.”
But the increase in tourist arrivals does not match earnings also due to low spending of the tourists. “A arge number of hotels have been selling their rooms at cheaper rates, and as a result, earnings had not increased despite arrivals crossing the one-million mark,” according to HAN.