Genting turns down travel trade bookings due to room crunch

Resorts World Genting has stopped accepting third-party bookings at its call centre since April 22, a move that has Malaysian agents up in arms over their inability to book rooms for their clients at one of the country?s most popular tourist attractions.

The Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association (MITA) has called for an April 27 meeting with local agents and does not rule out boycotting the resort if the matter could not be resolved amicably with its management.

Adam Kamal, MITA secretary-general, said: ?Since early this year, agents had been buying rooms (at Genting) at published rates when they could not get rooms under agent allocations. When rooms are still available, why stop (agents and tour operators) from buying them at published rates over the counter??

Agents also lamented the timing of the order as summer bookings had been pouring in from Asian and Middle East markets.
World Avenues executive director Ally Bhoonee was frustrated room requests for June and July could not be confirmed. ?It makes operations very difficult and we cannot close the deal with our clients overseas.?

He wondered why the resort continued to send sales people to the Middle East, when it knew it would not be allocating rooms to tour operators.

?I understand they are practising yield management. But they could have increased their contract rates to agents ? we are willing to sell at a higher rate ? instead of creating this mess for the whole industry,? Bhoonee added.

Belantara Holidays director of business development Henry Ong suggested the matter be brought up to the ministerial level eventually as it threatened overall volumes to Malaysia.

A source from Resorts World Genting said the renovation of three properties ? Highlands Hotel, Genting Hotel and First World Hotel ? had created a room crunch that would only be alleviated by year-end. The source added that Resorts World Genting valued the support of agents and was open to a dialogue with them.