PESHAWAR, Feb 18: “This is the Ruby suite where Imran Khan and Jamima Khan stayed for a night when they came to Peshawar in late 90s,” says manager Zahid Khan proudly while opening the lock of a room with a cedar facade and balcony, a sleeping attic, a large bathroom and sitting area of Khan Klub hotel.
The Khan Klub is a 200 years old building in Peshawar dating back to Sikh era which was turned by an Irish man in 1995 into a hotel exhibiting a traditional look of Pakhtun hospitality. The hotel later became property of a local trader.
The interior of the building is impressive as every room of the hotel is named after different gemstones, special feature of each room, but all the rooms are lying locked as the hotel is not getting any visitors, especially the foreign tourists, who usually fancy old building.
The Lapis suite with royal blue furnishings and solid Lazuli bowls and decorative tiles, the spinal room, the Marganite room with Sikh-style windows and brass lanterns, The Tourmaline suite with three level of carved antique glass windows and a loft for sleeping, the Topaz suite with a large sitting room and sleeping loft, The Garnet room, the Peridot room and the Ruby suite all are locked and lying empty for months.
The historic rooms with traditional look are not marketing anymore since there is no improvement in the services to match the standard of any hotel with traditional look but equipped with all the modern facilities.
There were times when The Khan Klub used to attract visitors especially foreign tourists due to its historic building and traditional sitting area in Alladin-style restaurant despite its location in a congested old part of the city.
The owner of the hotel Najeeb Khan, however, thinks recurrent suicide bombings and terrorism has scared the tourists away.
“Once we used to have all the rooms full and earned up to Rs45,000 a day but things have changed since 9/11 and recent rising wave of terrorism as number of tourists has fallen so low that hotel is going in loss for the past few years,” says Zahid Khan gloomily.
The hotel was also a hub of foreign journalists who were covering the US led strikes in Afghanistan to ousted the Taliban government in 2001.
In recent years, the absence of foreign tourists and rise in suicide bombings in North West Frontier Province badly affected the tourism related businesses. Business was so bad that Khan Klub was closed down for almost six months. It was opened later but couldn’t take a good start.The congested areas and presence of trucks, loading and unloading in the nearby flour godowns at night, constantly disturbs the inmates of the hotel so no one opts for the stay at night at the hotel, says one local who used to accompany foreigners to the hotel in the past.
“The locals are not attracted to the traditional-style hotel and they don’t come here,” observes Najeeb Khan, the owner of the hotel.
Najeeb laments that he had a staff of 22 which is now reduced to only three and the rooms are closed and he is trying to keep the restaurant running by offering dinners and lunches but even then there are very few customers who visit the hotel during a month.
He says that it is getting difficult to even pay the taxes when the hotel business is suffering financial loss. The hotel is not only in financial trouble but it also lacks modern facilities like internet and television etc.
The hotel owners is of the view that sometime they play live traditional music and the hotel wants to exhibit traditional look so it doesn’t provide television or any modern facility in the rooms.
“But the live music is not played very often since the number of customers is almost nil,” says the hotel owner.
The hotel, which once used to host foreign diplomats, only receives seven customers including two foreigners but even that is a rare case. It has not been receiving many customers for the last few years, Mr Zahid Khan says.
“Year 2007 was celebrated by Pakistan as ‘Visit Pakistan Year’ but ironically the entire year witnessed upsurge in terrorism rather than tourism,” Najeeb Khan says.
Zarin Khan, a travel agent and tourist guide, who used to bring diplomats to the hotel, says that foreign tourists like this place due to its unique setting but now the number of such tourists has dropped due to security concerns.
The Khan Klub, which does not attract local customers due to lack of proper facilities and its location, is perhaps going to be another victim, like hotels in scenic but troubled Swat Valley, of terrorism since no foreign tourists come here anymore. The harsh reality is that there seems no hope for any revival of this once most visited eatery in the historic Peshawar City.