The international chain Wyndham, present at local level with Howard Johnson and Ramada brands will inaugurate at the end of 2010 the first Days Inn hotel in Romania. The unit, classified with three superior stars will have over 120 rooms and will be located in a provincial town. “We will open the first Days Inn hotel in Romania. The construction will be completed by the end of 2010 in a provincial town, not in Bucharest, but I cannot offer you other details. If we find a location we will also have in view the capital city in the future”, Tinu Sebesanu, CEO of Trend Hospitality declared for Business Standard. The company represents, at local level, the international hotel chain Wyndham, Sebesanu being the coordinator of all general hotel managers holding franchises or operating the brands Wyndham – Howard Johnson and Ramada in Romania. Sebesanu says the safest investments in hotels are three star units.“At least for the next 5 years, the future of investments in the hotel field will be units classified with three stars or three superior stars. In case of three star units the investment-expense-income ratio has the highest efficiency. That is the reason why we bring Days Inn in Romania because it is the market we believe in,” the CEO of Trend Hospitality said.
“The hotels most affected by the crisis are the independent ones. Affiliated hotels benefit from the power of the brand and clients will prefer safety and comfort”, the consultant added. The crisis did not avoid big hotel units affiliated to international firms, by the reduction of accommodation prices, increasing the fight for market shares. “You can no longer call yourself a profitable business by continuously reducing prices and expecting to maintain high quality standards. Discounts have compelled five star hotels to take from market shares of four star hotels, those of four stars took over the shares of three stars hotels and so on. The return to prices used before the crisis is now impossible,” Sebesanu said.
Tinu Sebesanu, the CEO of a consulting firm in the hospitality domain, Trend Hospitality, considers that the hotel market will continue to drop until May 2010 when, optimistically speaking, it will stabilize. The first two months of 2010 will be the most difficult for hotels, the deepening of crisis placing in difficulty hotel businesses in the local market.“The first two months of the year will have a devastating effect for those in the industry. Whoever has the possibility to finance the business these months will get over the year or will go bankrupt. I think 2010 will be the year of bankruptcies,” Sebesanu concluded.
However, the consultant says there will be also positive effects of the crisis. “Those who can get over the crisis will have more efficient operations, a thing which would not have taken place in a normal economic period,” he added.The plans of Trend Hospitality company to expand Ramada units at local level continue, not affected by the economic crisis, according to Tinu Sebesanu.“In 2010 we will open two new Ramada hotels, one in Oradea and another one in Cluj and two others will open in 2011 in Pitesti and on the Black Sea coast, in Mamaia. The average investment in a Ramada unit is 10-15 million euro,” Sebesanu said.
