Bucharest needs twice more accommodations

Bucharest is in dire need of accommodations, according to tourism officials. Whereas the market of luxury hotels (four and five stars) is already crowded, demand for the two and three-star hotels still exceeds supply.
“The Capital needs 17,000 accommodation places, which is twice the current level,” says Alexandru Stancu, general manager of the Tourism Research and Development Institute (INCDT).
According to the National Statistics Institute, less than 8,500 accommodations were registered in Bucharest in the first half of last year.
To be successful, “a new hotel must first of all enter the market,” Stancu claims. Several three-star hotels have said they are planning to enter the market soon, incensed by the success of Ibis Hotel, but the two-star hotels are scarce and things are not likely to change soon.
According to Ioan David, Ibis general manager, the hotel last year posted 5.25 million euros in turnover, which is set to go up 5% in 2003. “Turnover and the occupancy rate exceeded our expectations by 15% last year, due to our excellent position in terms of the price-quality ratio on the Bucharest market of three-star hotels,” David added.
“There is a certain reticence towards investing in two-star hotels, although demand is very high and supply is scarce,” the INCDT manager said.
No two-star or one-star hotel has been built in Bucharest since 1989, while the existent structures have been neither consolidated nor modernised. Consequently, part of these structures were either closed down or turned into business centres.
However, Dragos Raducan, secretary general of the Romanian Tourism Patronage Federation (FPTR), says the need for accommodations is even higher. “There are enough rooms in five-star hotels, but the transit hotels are nowhere to be found in Bucharest, for the travelers who need a place to stay for one or two nights,” Raducan states.