He said that these days the two branches of the hotel in Multan – one with 22 rooms at the Kutchery Road and the other with 40 rooms in the market off Kutchery Road – are packed to capacity.
The tourism industry of the city has got an unexpected boost in their businesses in the wake of the floods in the neighbouring districts of Muzaffargarh and Dera Ghazi Khan. They have led to an influx of relief workers, government officials and media personnel. Besides Sheraton, four other major hotels – Ramada, Fortilla, Shezan and Sindbad – are also fully booked.
Munzir Elahi, the PPAF general manager (media and communications), said that his organisation had been involved in a number of development projects in villages and communities surrounding Multan. He said that whenever a PPAF-team visited Multan it used to rent space in Ramada but not this time. “We even used our contacts in Islamabad but could not convince them to provide rooms for even three days,” he said. With the rescue phase almost over, most organisations settling in at the hotels are involved in conducting surveys for the effective provision of relief and rehabilitation of the flood affected population.
Toshiya Sato, a JICA senior representative, said that his two-member team had moved in for three days to conduct surveys. The survey findings, Sato said, will help JICA decide whether or not and where to deploy its medical teams.
“Though our routine rate is between Rs2,000 and Rs2,200, we sometimes charge up to Rs4,000 to the walk-in guests,” a receptionist at Sheraton Tower told The Express Tribune. He said that they cannot overcharge the companies, as well as the provincial government that are on their panel. To balance the overwhelming demand, he said, they had to sometimes transfer the brunt to the NGOs and other walk-in guests.
About 12 rooms in Sheraton Tower have been booked by the provincial government for a UNICEF team conducting “a household flood destruction survey”. Other organisations staying at the hotel in connection with the relief and rehabilitation efforts include the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Islamic Relief and Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF).
Ramada, with a total of 90 rooms, is charging up to Rs7,000 for single-bed and up to Rs8,000 for double-bed rooms. “We will not have space available for walk-in guests for some time,” a reception desk employee at Ramada told The Express Tribune. He refused to name the organisations that had booked rooms in the hotel but said that most were related to the flood relief work.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 31st, 2010.
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