The Ruposhi Bangla Hotel will remain closed for at least 19 months from May next as the management plans for a massive renovation before rebranding it for the InterContinental Hotels chain.
The five-star hotel already announced there will be no reservation from the first day of the month and is supposed to open after rebranding in January 2016.
The board of directors of Bangladesh Services Limited, a government-owned company and the operator of the hotel, made the decisions in September.
“Before starting the renovation work, we need to vacate the hotel and 18 months [actually 19 months] is quite enough for making the hotel a modern and world standard one,” said James McDonald, general manager of the hotel located at the busy city centre of Shahbagh.
The tender documents are being processed to invite bids February next. “The design [for the renovations] is ready and we have engaged 14 consultants for a comprehensive renovation,” McDonald told the Dhaka Tribune.
The employees were, however, against the full closure as they feared job cuts and losses of the service charges each of them gets every month. Under the banner of Ruposhi Bangla Hotel Sramik O Karmachari Union, they demanded implementation of the renovation work in phases and without hampering the services.
But McDonald, a representative of the world’s largest hotel chain InterContinental Hotels Group, said partial renovation was “simply impossible.”
“We need to change every pipe, every cable, every toilet [fitting] and every bathtub to turn this hotel into a world-standard one. It is impossible to offer the service and carry out the renovation work at the same time,” he said.
He added: “The employees will be paid their basic salaries and other benefits during the renovation period. So, there is no fear of job cuts.”
The workers’ union said 19 months was a long time and there was a huge possibility that the hotel would lose its business.
An official informed the Dhaka Tribune that the hotel had earned Tk1.25bn in revenues in 2012 and Tk740m as of September this year.
James McDonald, however, is confident that they can get back the business when the hotel reopens after renovation and rebranding.
“There is no doubt here. We can sell the history of this hotel and that of the InterContinental during this country’s Liberation War,” he said.
However, the workers’ union is worried that the full closure will mean losses of the service charges they receive every month.
An official said each of the employees got Tk28,000 last month as their share in the service charges earned by the hotel. The workers are holding demonstrations inside the hotel at breaks every working day.
“We are not against the renovation but we do not need one that causes concerns for us. We want the prime minister’s interference in this issue,” Md Shafiuddin, president of the workers’ union, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Earlier in June, the management demolished five rooms without a tender for renovation, but the room is yet to be refurbished. “We have changed our plans as the T20 World Cup is in March 2014,” McDonald said.
Meanwhile, sources said, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had also requested the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel management to reschedule the renovation work, which would cost $40m.
The Bangladesh Services Limited inked an agreement with the InterContinental Hotels Group for 30 years in February last year, which had a condition for renovating the hotel.
McDonald declined to disclose the profit sharing between the two parties.
The Bangladesh Services Limited will bear the renovation cost partially from its own fund and the rest from bank loans.
In the new design, the hotel will decrease the number of guest rooms from 272 to 231 as the size of the rooms will be increased from 26 square metres to 40sq-m. The dining hall and swimming pool will be relocated while some added services and benefits will be offered.
InterContinental ran the iconic Dhaka hotel from 1966 to 1983. Sheraton took over its operation and management in 1983 for the next 25 years that ended in December 2008.
The government requested Sheraton to continue the operation until April 30, 2011 for the World Cup Cricket tournament.
Starwood, the mother company of Sheraton, gave the BSL a conditional extension offer in 2009, but there was a disagreement between Starwood and the BSL authorities over the renovation cost and the fate of the employees. Eventually, the BSL took over the hotel’s operations, renaming it Ruposhi Bangla Hotel.
