Residential hotels in Chittagong city are suffering financial losses as hartals and the non-stop nationwide blockade by BNP-led 20-party alliance is hurting their business.
Authorities of different hotels said customers have been cancelling their bookings every day due to the political unrest.
Owners of many hotels will have to shut down their business if this situation persists, they added.
Business is usually at its peak during this time of the year, as people from around the country as well as abroad visit Chittagong during winter for conferences, other official purposes, or simply vacation.
Many posh hotels, such as the Peninsula Chittagong, Hotel Agrabad, the Well Park, the Tower Inn, the Avenue, the Landmark and the Saint Martin, where customers are mostly foreign nationals, have recently had a good number of bookings cancelled, sources at those hotels said.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Mustak Luhar, general manager of the Peninsula, said: “We have 144 rooms, and every day customers are cancelling their booking in our hotel because of the ongoing political turmoil. Guests coming from Dhaka and others parts of the country because of they cannot come to Chittagong because of this situation.
“We don’t know how we can run the business if this turmoil continues. We don’t know how we going to pay the salary of our staff,” the general manager said.
Even events such as weddings, parties and conferences are being cancelled at the last moment due to the situation, sources said.
Iftekhar Safi, senior manager of sales and media at Hotel Agrabad, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Foreign travellers are cancelling their trips to Chittagong fearing political violence, which is a huge blow to the hotel business here.”
The hotels in the port city faced a similar situation in 2013, prior to the 10th parliamentary elections. Several businesses went through downsizing to make up for their losses then, sources said.