In Reply to: Agree posted by raybee on Wednesday, 22. October 2008 at 18:17 Bali Time:
because its a business. wholesalers typically mark up 20% and more, but thats life i guess. if you were to purchase something in bali for 10,000 but knew you could sell it for aud5, and still make money on it, i dont think you would say 'oh no, lets just sell it for .50 cents profit because so many people want the product. you would up the price because its in demand.
thats the way it is and thats the way its gonna stay.
with regards to hotel staff salaries, you find that housekeeping are on the lowest rate but this is because they get so many perks. that 10,000Rp you leave on your pillow each day adds up over a whole hotel worth of people. on top of that they get their share of the service charge, so they arent exactly starving.
chefs and F&B managers also get a cut of the profits. some of them get a 5% (or so) share of the F&B profits on top of salary and service charge.
people here arent doing as bad as many people like to think. im not by any stretch of the imagination saying that they are rolling around in money, but they arent on the breadline either.