CRITERIA surrounding government meetings organised on non-government premises were finally clarified by the Indonesian government, which today issued official guidelines for such events.
The Ministry of State Apparatus and Bureaucratic Reform last November issued a circular that limited government agencies to holding meetings within government-owned spaces in a bid to reduce costs.
Hotels, a main beneficiary of this segment of meetings, saw business drop drastically in the immediate aftermath.
But in a press conference yesterday, Yuddy Chrisnandi, minister of state apparatus and bureaucratic reform, said: “Meetings outside government offices can be done selectively (but) they need to meet certain criteria based on effectiveness and efficiency.
“These meetings must be accounted for, monitored and controlled.”
The minister said meetings held at external venues must produce clear results, through transcripts of the meeting, reports and a list of all attendees, signed by the official in charge.
National and regional government agencies must also come up with further terms, conditions and standard operating procedures to perform such evaluations.
Yuddy expects the new guideline would address the grievances of the hotel industry, and hoteliers that TTG Asia e-Daily spoke have responded positively.
Don Tiganov, e-commerce marketing manager, Lombok Raya Hotel, lauded the move, saying: “We learned earlier that the government would revoke the regulation. As soon as it was in the news, we started to receive inquiries from government agencies for meetings in our hotels.”
Tiganov anticipates new bookings as a direct result.
Vivi Herlambang, director of sales, marketing & business development of Sahid International Hotel Management & Consultant, said: “We unofficially heard about the new directive last month and managed to convince some government agencies to book with our hotels.
“The official announcement has made us more confident of the business coming back, although not as big as it was before.”
She pointed out that besides the more stringent regulations, government offices have cut meeting budgets significantly for this year and all additional budget approvals would require time for parliament to clear.
