Caro Hotels targets 6.8m-euro turnover

Caro hotel complex, which incorporates 160 two, three and four-star rooms, developed on the site of a former glucose plant, has budgeted turnover worth 6.8m euros for 2008, up around 35% year-on-year.
“Last year, we generated turnover worth 5m euros, while this year’s increase will come when the new 4-star wing, which includes 55 rooms, begins taking reservations,” said Octavian Lazar, manager of the hotel complex, which is divided into three categories, the four-star Caro Golf, the three-star Caro Parc an the two-star Caro Horoscop. Caro Golf now has 98 rooms and will reach a capacity of over 150 rooms in the wake of an investment worth above 2m euros.
An investment in a spa and pool will start this year after rooms were reclassified as a marketing strategy, while an investment worth 4.5m euros in an events hall will also be carried out.
As in the case of most other Bucharest hotels, most revenues are secured from business traffic.
“At present, half of our guests are Romanian business people, while the other half are foreigners; a proportion that differs from several years ago, when 70% were foreigners (…),” said Lazar, who added the hotel’s occupancy rate stood at around 62% last year.
Investments started by the majority shareholder, Ion Lazar, who is also the owner of Adevarul publishing house, will be carried out over a time period of at least six years, aimed both at an office complex, and other possible hotels.
“(…) Offices are most likely to be finalised in 2011,” said Octavian Lazar, who also specified that no other foreign funds would be sought for the Caro Hotel business, while for other projects some partnerships would be sealed.
According to him, the majority shareholder in Caro complex is the Lazar family, with over 60% in it, together with a French partner with around 30%, while the rest belongs to other minority shareholders.
In the case of Caro complex, the goal is to maintain the brand and as little crowded a space as possible, however, the owners do not rule out the possibility of another larger hotel, which should be affiliated to an international chain, developed on another portion of the 5-hectare plot the company owns.
“People are still attracted by brands. Each brand that enters the market will shake independent hotels a little. (…) We may build a bigger hotel under another brand, but for now Caro stays as it is,” said Lazar, who also said that after the “standardisation of the Caro concept, other cities may also be added to the list of destinations (…) Should we manage to standardise the product, it would be interesting to see ourselves develop in other cities in the country,” said Lazar.
Caro complex was established in 1994, when the northern area of Bucharest was still undeveloped.