Budget hotels in Amman lie empty as virus takes toll

AMMAN —  The occupancy rate at hotels with a rating less than three stars in Amman stands at zero per cent, said Chairman of the Jordan Hotel Association’s Board of Directors Abdul Hakim Hindi.

The occupancy rate in hotels with more than 3 stars ranges from only 2 per cent to 3 per cent,  Hindi said in a statement. In Dead Sea hotels, the occupancy rate during the next few days, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, will be 50 per cent, he said.

Hotel workers said that the “sudden rise” in Dead Sea hotels’ occupancy is due to the two-day weekend lockdown announced by the government.

“It is no surprise that citizens do not want to spend the two days they have off in their house, especially given the current anxiety and stress caused by rising case numbers, so their escape will either be the Dead Sea, Wadi Rum and Petra, or Aqaba,” said Ibrahim Saleh, a concierge at a Dead Sea hotel.

Saleh, however, said that this is “a good point for high-end hotels and a bad one for locally owned one, two- and three-star hotels.”

“Citizens tend to think that the higher the hotel’s rating, the more adherent it will be to health instructions, which is somewhat true. However, this is unfair to less than three-star hotels that used to provide adequate service to citizens who cannot afford high-end hotels’ rates,” added Saleh.

The association chairman said that the closure of dining halls in hotels “came as a surprise” and that he was not informed of it.

“This is another hit for citizens looking to take their families out for a fun weekend. Room service is definitely more expensive than a hotel’s dining hall. Moreover, citizens cannot go out to restaurants outside the hotel because of the lockdown, so they are forced to order room service,” said Sameh Allan, a worker in a three-star hotel in Amman.

“Citizens are immediately put off when we tell them that we no longer provide free breakfast at our restaurant like we used to,’ Allan added.

Down south, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) asked hotels and other tourist accommodation establishments in the port city to close their restaurants. The authority stated that catering to customers in tourist facilities is limited to room service only until further notice, given the development of the epidemiological situation.

ASEZA chief Nayef Bakhit, in a statement, said that the control and inspection teams will carry out inspection tours on all facilities to ensure their compliance with public safety instructions and guidelines.