Lina Nanik Harjani
IPMI International Business School
Amelia Naim Indrajaya
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Kampung Lumpung Boutique Hotel was founded in 2006 in Batu, small city in East Java Island, Indonesia. It was designed and built by a passionate family man with an innovative thoughts to be as ECO friendly as possible by reusing reclaimed timber, mostly old java teak wooden house.
This hotel is located +850m above the sea level, with average temperature 20C. It has spectacular view with unique design and business model, fresh air, pure mountain spring water, great nature and landscape. In addition, this incredible hotel has their own garden with more than 100 plants as an evidence of their commitment to humanity, and blend the aspiration to its business model.
Among the numerous lodging choices available, Kampung Lumbung is the one that stands out. Kampung Lumpung specifically chose the phrase “boutique hotel” as their personality to depict their tranquil scene. The term “Boutique Hotel” itself is an expression used to describe hotels which usually have between 10 and 100 rooms and regularly contain rich offices in special or warm settings. Starting in urban areas like London, New York and San Francisco, boutique hotels are outfitted in a themed, smart stylistic layout. As a rule, these sort of hotels are owned by individuals and concentrated on how they provide a quality service that is customized.
Kampung Lumbung has a total of 36 rooms, which 80% of them are utilizing wood components from old houses. Whatever remains of the building is a typical concrete solid building, yet the wood utilized as part of the building are used items. The owner collected all the elements from some of the cities in East Java, even one of the room was made of hundred years old pieces of wood (1818).
Kampung Lumbung's purpose originally is to preserve East Java culture and the wood. Along the years, with his passion for the community, the owner even start to re-used bottle (upcycling), plastic drum (upcycled to beautiful craft for decoration) and successfully create a profitable business model.
Kampung Lumbung Boutique Hotel is a sustainable and profitable business. The owner has the passion to preserve local architecture using replanted teak wood. Most of decorations are also up-cycled products with high art skills. He is able to produce innovative products currently used as furniture in his own lodging and become saleable products through word of mouth.
Kampung Lumbung's purpose originally is to preserve East Java culture and the wood. Now it has developed into a community involvement projects of up-cycled beautiful art craft products made of bottle, and plastic drum for decoration. Now this business is also profitable because of the word of mouth.
The idea for Kampung Lumbung came about when a 48 years old, Bambang S. Dharma decided to take an early retirement and buy a piece of land in the hill area in Beiji, Batu to realize one of his passion to have his own hotel. His education background is marketing communication, but he always have a special place in his heart for architecture. “I have a special affection to East Java architecture, it’s sad to see in rural areas, many of those old houses became rickety and began to be replaced with a typical nad ordinary concrete building. The wood from the old rickety houses mostly cannibalized and end up as part of new furniture in Bali. The awareness to preserve East Java architecture is very low – so many young generation nowadays have no idea at all about their heritage”.
Another East Java characteristic that is also adapted by Kampung Lumbung is the use of teak wood. The hotel has twenty rooms that only uses teak wood. Despite also popular in other areas in Indonesia, Javanese teak is particularly sought after, as it has a smoother and stronger texture than teak wood from another regions of Indonesia. Javanese Teak, especially from Central Java and East Java, is very famous and hounded by collectors abroad since the era of colonialism under the empire of the Dutch . Teak wood is also termite free, so it is more durable than other types of wood. Java (especially East Java) has an exclusive relationship with teak wood – the material plays a special part in Javanese tradition. Teak wood were often used in building structures. Javanese traditional houses, such as ‘Joglo”, uses teak wood in almost all its construction: the pillars of the house, the roof frame house, up to the carved walls of the house.
“We try to preserve both East Java architecture and the wood. We are committed to the ecosystem. We use second hand teak wood, and apply a low cost building concept – most of our rooms have this unfinished style, so it’s more natural, rustic natural.”, Bambang explained the commitment of Kampung Lumbung to the ecosystem. “To show commitment of our lodge to the environment, we did a major reforestation around our area. Before we had this hotel, this is an arid area. We made it greener. We have this 1000 trees implanted since 2006. We didn’t cover the top soil so the terrain is still open. We also combined solar water heater with gas to reduce the use of electricity usage”.
To preserve culture and commit to the ecosystem whilst getting profit and word of mouth exposures from delighted customers and stakeholders.
The Kampung Lumbung Boutique Hotel is profitable as evidenced by its sales growth. The power of words of mouth has brought it to the next level in the hospitality industry. The tag-line is "Rediscover vanishing East Java Kampong architectures and enojoy hospitality in a 2 ha landscape with a cool breezy air and 100% pure spring-water". It was built with old vanishing Java when things were made without machineries but with the touch of the hand wholeheartedly.
The good thing is that this preservation is also celebrated by the local community. People working in the surrounding area plant vegetables and then harvest the result. Kampung Lumbung is also establishing a new standard in the East Java’s hospitality industry, where the concept “boutique hotel” is becoming a new trend. “We have no problem with how people are starting to imitate our hotel. Actually, we felt really good about how our hotel inspires other people to do good things”, said Bambang with a big smile.
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Dharma Bambang Setia, Mr
