WITH less than a month to go before engines start revving for Singapore’s second Formula One race, hotels here are banking on last-minute bookings to fill their many empty rooms.
A Straits Times check with 30 hotels showed at least 25 reporting a worse showing this year compared to that in the same period last year.
Even trackside properties like the Ritz-Carlton Millenia, offering the best views of the circuit, are not sold out, unlike the situation last year when all the hotel’s rooms were snapped up weeks ahead of the inaugural event.
At some hotels farther away from the race action, like the Siloso Beach Resort on Sentosa, occupancy rates have dipped by as much as 30per cent this year.
Despite room rates falling 40 to 45per cent and many hotels adding incentives – such as tickets to tourist attractions and no minimum number of nights that a guest must stay – to their packages, sales remain sluggish. Continue reading
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