Polish hotel sector straining to meet the demand

Such were the findings of hotel panel at the 9th Hotel and Office Investment Conference Łódź Rediscover, which took place at EC 1 in Łódź on April 19th, 2018.

“We currently have 15,000 guestrooms under construction in Poland. This is about 14 pct of all the rooms in the country,” revealed Alex Kloszewski, a managing partner of Hotel Professionals Management Group and the moderator of the panel.

The largest players are actively looking for new locations for their projects, but the best places are already occupied in many cities and towns. However, hotel chains have not given up.

“We have been closely monitoring the development of the market and can see that some places are already heavily saturated with hotel facilities. However, this is not a problem for us because we are looking for central and peripheral locations,” explained Jacek Stasikowski, the director of development of the AccorHotels and Orbis chains.

Piotr Ratajczyk, the operational director of Grupa Konkret, added that his company is preparing a spectacular project at the Modlin Fortress, where 1,000 rooms and a congress centre for around 6,500 people are to be developed. The revival of the hotel sector is being reflected in the opening of such new facilities.

“We are opening a hotel under the Golden Tulip brand in Bielsko-Biała this September. We are also negotiating several contracts. I think that we will be able to officially announce them in May,” disclosed Adam Konieczny, the development director for Eastern Europe of the Louvre Hotels Group. “We are opening a Hampton by Hilton with 174 rooms in Gdańsk at the end of May and in two years will be opening a Holiday Inn with 230 rooms in Warsaw,” commented Andrzej Wójcik, the CEO of Satoria Group.

The hospitality business, however, is not easy and requires extensive knowledge of the market. Not all hotels are guaranteed to be a success. Poor location or management can harm the hotel’s prospects.

“Hotel projects are difficult and highly capital-intensive; they also require long-term resources. However, the investors we are in contact with are well prepared and use the guidance of hotel advisors,” claimed Janusz Mitulski, the director of international hotel development at Marriott International.