Dari Bernama (Berita Nasional Malaysia) Kita baca: Business
---------- January 14, 2005 10:47 AM
TDM Plans To Run More Hotels In Mecca & Medina
By Tengku Noor Shamsiah
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 (Bernama) -- TDM Bhd, which has leased a hotel in Mecca, plans to run more hotels in the holy city and Medina, its executive director, Datuk Alwi Said said.
"We have recently concluded (an agreement), through our subsidiary, Indah Sari Travel & Tours Sdn Bhd with one Saudi Arabian hotel in Mecca for pilgrims (to stay when they perform their haj and umrah)," he said.
TDM is majority-owned by the Terengganu State Economic Development Corporation.
Alwi said that if the business of managing the hotel in Mecca showed good progress and had the capacity to grow well within the next few years, the company would consider running more hotels in Mecca and Medina.
Investing in hotel management operations in Saudi Arabia is part of the group's strategy of venturing into tourism and hospitality industry.
Besides tourism, TDM is mainly involved in plantations, which contributes about 80 percent to the group's earnings, while the rest include poultry and healthcare.
Speaking to Bernama recently, Alwi said TDM had invested RM3.0 million for the hotel management business in Saudi Arabia, which took off in late 2003.
"The hotel management business has been doing quite well with very good occupancy rate right from the beginning," he said.
For the current haj season, he said the company's hotel was already fully booked while during the last Ramadhan, it was also operating at full capacity.
Alwi said TDM was informed by its Saudi partners that even during the non-peak season, the hotel was "very well-occupied".
As a result of the company's entry into the hotel business, he said TDM also planned to run inbound tours, especially from West Asia, into Terengganu as this was in line with the state government's move to promote tourism.
Asked whether TDM would be managing or building new hotels in Terengganu, Alwi said that was something important for the company to look in the future so that the state's tourism activities could be enhanced.
"What TDM is focusing now is to look for a less capital intensive investment like running inbound tours," he explained.
But over the longer term and as part of its efforts to promote the tourism business, Alwi said TDM was looking for partners to develop its a 40ha piece of land in Pulau Perhentian as a tourist destination or a tourist resort.
-- BERNAMA
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