KARACHI: The Peshawar tragedy has shaken the hotel industry as foreigners are checking out, events are being cancelled out and movement of local customers slowing down.

Pakistan Hotels Association (PHA) has shared the feedback with Dawn that it received from its members regarding the current and future business scenario.

An official of Ramada Plaza Karachi said: “Our guests (local/ foreigner) reacted to the news on Tuesday. Foreigners left the country and locals avoided public places. Now for last two days, our restaurants are empty. We are not receiving many walk-in guests. Only the in-house guests are using the restaurants.”

Room occupancy has not been affected as such since we have prior local commitments. However, the future looks bleak. We have started to receive cancellations, the Ramada official informed PHA.

Pearl-Continental Hotel in Karachi said: “We as hoteliers lost business to the tune of Rs2.5 million in our food and beverages area in a day, whilst in our room occupancy we lost business of approximately 10-15 per cent.”

Ramada Islamabad Hotel reported few cancellations but the situation was better than what they expected.

Islamabad Marriot Hotel gave details of sales loss of up to Rs4 million.

Director Sales of Pearl Continental Rawalpindi observed that after Peshawar tragedy tourists would stop travelling to Pakistan.

He said many international meetings and conferences scheduled to be held in Pakistan have now been shifted to other countries like Dubai and Malaysia as chief guests invited refused to visit the country citing safety concerns.

The stoppage of international flights to Pakistan has badly affected hotel industry since layover of airlines’ staff is a major source of income.

Different companies and organisations/institutions have also postponed their events, he added.

Most of the travel and tours companies decline to confirm business for next year. “The hotel industry is dependent on tourism which plays a vital role in the growth of a country’s economy,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2014