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At the reception desk of a Sharia hotel in Jakarta, religion is on show. Guests are checked in by young women wearing matching purple jilbabs that fall across the shoulders of their black jackets.
Key points:
- In Jakarta Sharia hotels are on the rise and they are free to refuse service to unmarried couples
- This week Governor Anies Basdewan fulfilled his campaign promise to close a notorious brothel
- Former employees are being encouraged to work in Sharia hotels
There is a collection box for the local mosque in a corner of the lobby, and the hotel's mission statement is fastened to an adjacent wall, making it clear this is a "halal hotel".
The front desk staff of the Hotel Sofyan are trained to catch out any couples who look like breaching the hotel's adherence to sharia law.
"If they are not married, they cannot stay here," explains Asep, one of the front desk staff.
Sharia is the Islamic religious code that mandates — among other things — modest clothing and behaviour.
In Indonesia's Aceh province, offences against Sharia, such as sex before marriage or gay sex, are punishable with jail and public caning.
Jakarta has no such rules, but a Sharia hotel is free to refuse to check-in couples who are not married.
"We don't have a proper regulation saying that you must bring your marriage certificate," Asep said.
"So we can see it from their body language."
In particular "their behaviour, shyness, awkwardness, you can see it if they are married," he added.
It is not just hotels that enforce Sharia codes.
Online Airbnb-style room rental sites like Zen Rooms often carry ads with the word "Syariah" (Sharia) that means unmarried couples are not welcome.
The city's best-known 'pleasure palace'
Sharia accommodation is in the headlines this week after Jakarta's new Governor shut down the city's best-known brothel and urged its workers to get new jobs in Sharia hotels.
Governor Anies Baswedan came to power thanks to the support of conservative Muslims, and he quickly fulfilled his campaign promise to close the Hotel Alexis.
The management of Alexis denied they were running a brothel.
But that's a smokescreen: the hotel was the city's best-known pleasure palace.
The vast hotel, massage parlour and karaoke club in this increasingly conservative city is hardly discrete — it looms over one of Jakarta's busiest roads — its facade decorated with six-metre high orange and yellow panels designed to look like the legs of can-can dancers.
Online clips featuring the hotel show groups of men sitting in a lounge, selecting companions from a parade of identically dressed young women.
After shutting the hotel, Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno was asked about jobs for the workers.
"These people who work in Alexis, they must be skilful in serving … Sharia hotels are now widely popular — so now those hotels can absorb Alexis employees," Mr Uno said.
The Alexis workers might have difficulty adjusting to employment at the Sofyan Hotel: apart from the strict dress code and the rule against unmarried couples, the hotel runs an Islamic refresher course for staff every Thursday; and Muslim staff are expected to be able to read the Koran in Arabic.
The hotel's gym has a strict dress code — for women. Short pants are unacceptable.
When the ABC visited, the hotel was hosting an event by the newly launched Sharia Monitoring Board.
The body regulates another part of Sharia — Zakat — the tithing of a small proportion of a person's income to charity.
One of the participants is Fitri Fauzia.
"For me, personally, a halal hotel benefits us Muslims, and everyone else too," she said.
"It stops the free sex, and things outside Islamic law. There's the ethical code and halal food and I think it promotes more secure relationships.
"So it's of benefit for people in general."
Topics: tourism, travel-and-tourism, islam, religion-and-beliefs, community-and-society, indonesia