THE past one year saw a remarkably high number of hotel owners making the tough decision to shut down their business for good. While hotels including G City Club Hotel Kuala Lumpur and Holiday Inn Resort Penang in Penang were shuttered permanently, several others were closed temporarily, until people are allowed to travel again. Just last week, Hotel Equatorial Penang, citing huge losses, announced that it planned to cease operations before March 31. “Since last year, we have tracked about 90 hotels that had closed either temporarily or permanently,” says The Malaysian Association of Hotels CEO Yap Lip Seng. MAH’s data is from announcements or based on third-party reports.