Luxury hotels on Ukrainian market
Men wearing expensive brand-new suits and ladies wearing evening dresses were moving towards an entrance of the mirror-like building. The cream of diplomatic and business public of Kiev gathered at the opening ceremony of the new 5 star hotel Hyatt.
“There are no free places in hotel by now. If you want to have a rest at weekend, you must reserve a room well in advance” – warned the public a presenter of Hyatt Hotel, thereby making clear for all that 234 rooms at the price of 330-360 euros are already bought. There are as many as three 5star hotels in the capital today, but all the same they are not ready to satisfy the catastrophically growing demand.
The main hotel manager Steven Ansel makes no secret of the fact that he counts on 70% fillability, while the usual figure for hotels in Europe comprise nearly 30-50%. Managers of two other prestigious hotels, Opera and Premier Palace, confess that the average fillability of their hotels is around 60-65% and they are not afraid that an arrival of a new player will ever lead to the flow-out of their clients.
“The foreigner 35-45 years old, most likely German or Englishman, manager of high or medium level, a business owner” –this is the typical appearance of the client given by the sale manager of Opera Hotel, where the price reaches 310-760 euro for the room. Very similarly tend to look clients of Premier Palace. Hotel managers of the last only specify that approximately a quarter of all guests are Russians and only 8% - Ukrainians. Till 2001 Premier palace owners enjoyed all advantages that monopoly brings. They had invested 100 million dollars and planned to cover these costs in 8-12 year period. Today their business prospers and everything goes even better than it was planned at first. Besides the main business, an additional profit is brought thanks to fitness-clubs, bars, restaurants, actively visited by guests and luxury lovers. The holder of Opera is company “System Capital Management”, ruled by widely known in Ukraine rich man Renate Ahmetov. To all appearances, hotel business is in among Ukrainian multi-millionaires. In the next year very close to Hyatt should appear another hotel-giant of international network – “InterContinental-Kiev”. The holder of “21 century” also promises to open another 5star hotel “Sofitel” and going to turn 90 million of initial investments into fashionable hotel not without the help of French colleagues from “Accor group”. During 2009-2010 should also appear “Hilton”. Somehow or other, investors tie up this prospective hotel boom with the forthcoming “Euro-2012”.