What can happen to Czech hotels what happened in the USA in the 1980s. years, says the hotelier

What can happen to Czech hotels what happened in the USA in the 1980s. years, says the hotelier

Czech hotel chain Orea Hotels & Resorts plans to double the number of hotel rooms within two years. It now has 2,000. “By the end of next year, we would like to have up to 30 hotels in our network,” says CEO Gorjan Lazarov.

A chance for reform of the hotel market – this is how the domestic hotel chain Orea sees the current energy crisis and the economic problems of many tourism entrepreneurs. According to its CEO, Gorjan Lazarov, the Czech Republic could see what happened forty years ago in the USA.

“The Czech hotel market is now very fragmented. I think the crisis may be an opportunity for a lot of independent hoteliers who are struggling today. So that what happened in America in the 1980s, for example, would happen in the Czech Republic. years, when Mariottas, Hiltons started to emerge, and to create such a hotel platform,” says the head of Orea in Agenda SZ Byznys.

What they are interested in now are mainly operational opportunities, not investments in other properties.

“The way I see it is that if our portfolio today has over 2,000 rooms, we can double it,” believes Gorjan Lazarov, adding that in 2016 they had 14 hotels, now there are 20. “By the end of next year, we could be between 25 and 30,” he says. A condition for “newcomers” is the use of the Orea brand and the quality standards that the hotel chain promotes.

Orea Hotels has not escaped a sharp increase in energy prices either. This year’s increase in costs compared to 2019 has been estimated at roughly CZK 50 million, and there is no prospect of specific assistance from the government.

“The first step the government has taken, i.e. capping prices, is great because households and small and medium-sized enterprises know what to expect. We don’t know,” Gorjan Lazarov stressed, adding that the government should set comparable conditions for small and large businesses.

They themselves, like many other companies, have fixed energy prices only until the end of this year and are waiting to conclude new contracts. “It took us a while to get a draft of the contract (draft, working version – ed.), but it hasn’t been signed yet.”

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Nahoru Dolu