KARACHI, Nov 25: The star hotels in Karachi continue to face the brunt of the events after September 11 suicidal attacks in New York and Washington.

While these hotels in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar continue to do a roaring business, the activities in Karachi hotels have drastically dwindled.

According to Pakistan Hotels Association the business has gone down to almost 15 to 20 per cent more because of the fact that major airlines have not yet started their operations since they stopped it after war broke out in Afghanistan.

As a result there has been no movement of tourists and business people from abroad.

The Pakistan Hotels Association president Syed Arshad Ali said hotel occupancy rate has dropped from almost 60 to 70 per cent before Sept 11 to an average of 15 to 20 per cent.

He said the PHA held several meetings with the provincial finance minister and the concerned secretaries during which they were told that the hotel business had gone so bad that it was not possible to pay the bed tax at the fixed 70 per cent occupancy rate, which was reduced from previous 85 per cent in July 2001.

Mr Arshad said Sindh Governor Mohammedmian Soomro and Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh had acceded to the point, raised by the PHA, and reduced the fixed occupancy rate from 85 to 70 per cent.

However, the prevailing situation has resulted in a totally changed scenario wherein the occupancy rate has drastically come down to an average 15 to 20 per cent.

He said the finance minister had agreed to recovery of bed tax on actual basis. Meanwhile, a summary was accordingly moved by the concerned department, which was approved by the minister.

However, its approval from the chief secretary and the final order from the governor is still awaited.

The PHA chairman said that he had also held a meeting with chairman of the Board of Investment to recover the electricity charges on industrial tariff rather than commercial rate. He said he pointed to the BOI chief that hoteliers were already paying gas charges on industrial rate.

He said that hotel business has already been declared an industry and as such it should be given all incentives agreed by the government.—APP