Senggigi water saving is moving up the agenda. With forecasts pointing to a longer dry season, hotels and restaurants along the strip are tightening how they use water, and the head of the local hotel association says members are preparing the maximum level of conservation. It’s a quieter story than the headlines coming out of Gili Trawangan, but it’s worth knowing about if you’re planning a trip to the west coast.
Senggigi water saving: what the hotels are doing
The details come from I Ketut M. Jaya Kusuma, who chairs the Senggigi Hotel Association, speaking on September 15. A disclosure: he is also the general manager of Holiday Resort Lombok, the resort this site is affiliated with, so weigh his comments with that in mind. He said the dry season is a natural phenomenon, but the predictions suggest it may run longer than usual, so members are getting ready. A quick honesty note: this comes from one local report, by NTBSatu, and it doesn’t list specific measures, so I won’t invent any. The headline is simply that conservation is being stepped up across hotels and restaurants.
Most Senggigi hotels also use groundwater for their day-to-day needs, and Kusuma said that hasn’t caused problems for association members. That’s a useful detail, because it suggests the places most guests stay in aren’t leaning entirely on the public supply, which is where the dry-season trouble has shown up.
Where the dry season has already bitten
Not everyone has been so lucky. Some restaurants had their water from the regional water company, PDAM, cut for several days when the dry season started to bite, and at a few places the supply dropped or stopped altogether. By September 15 it had returned to normal, and Kusuma said the association wasn’t receiving complaints from its members.
The bigger problem is on the residential side. Around 250 families in Dusun Batu Bolong Griya, in Senggigi, had water shortages and were depending on a mosque’s wells. It’s a good reminder that dry-season water problems touch local households as well as hotels, and that the people who live here feel them first. In other words, the pinch so far has landed on restaurants and neighborhoods rather than on hotel rooms.
The Gili Trawangan warning
Kusuma was clear about why the association is being so careful. His message, in essence, was that Senggigi shouldn’t let water problems escalate the way they did on Gili Trawangan, where tourists ended up checking out early. If you missed that story, our write-up of the Gili Trawangan water crisis covers what happened in early September, when hundreds of guests cut their trips short after the island’s piped water stopped. It’s a fair worry: a few days without water on a tiny island was enough to empty rooms.
What it means if you’re visiting
Honestly, nothing dramatic. There’s no report of Senggigi hotels running dry, and the association says supply is running smoothly. But a dry-season trip is a good time to be a thoughtful guest. Shorter showers, reusing towels and turning off the tap while you brush your teeth help any property, and they cost you nothing. Those are just common-sense suggestions, not rules from the association, and your hotel will tell you if it wants guests to do anything specific.
There’s one more angle, and it’s my own reading rather than anything the association said. Back in August, a Senggigi hotel manager told RRI his property was already fully booked for MotoGP week, and more guests means more demand on the water supply. So it makes sense that the people running these places want to be well prepared before the crowds arrive, and it’s one more reason to be a considerate guest while you’re here.
The dry months are popular for good reason, as we explain in our best time to visit Lombok guide, but they do put pressure on water. For the full picture of the strip, our Senggigi and Mangsit guide covers where to stay, eat and wander.
And if you’re still deciding where to base yourself, a beachfront stay on the quieter Mangsit side of Senggigi is worth a look for a dry-season trip, when the beach weather is at its best.
This article draws on reporting from NTBSatu.
Are Senggigi hotels short of water?
No shortage at hotels was reported. The Senggigi Hotel Association said most hotels use groundwater without problems, and that supply to some restaurants, which was briefly interrupted, had returned to normal by September 15.
Why are Senggigi hotels saving water?
The association chair said predictions point to a longer dry season, so hotels and restaurants are preparing maximum water-saving measures as a precaution.
Who in Senggigi has had water problems this dry season?
Some restaurants had their PDAM supply cut for several days, and about 250 families in Dusun Batu Bolong Griya faced water shortages and relied on a mosque well.