Head of Intercontinental: Event market is starting to budge

Marten Schoenrock, general manager of five-star
Intercontinental hotel in Bucharest, says he is hoping the coming
period will bring about a rebound of the hotel market, considering
that there have been requests from companies for the hotel to host
events. “Although things will not be very different from the first
half of the year, I can tell the market is starting to budge. We
have had requests to organise events, which means companies are
starting to increase their budgets again,” he said. However,
revenues from food & beverage (event planning) have been down
10% this year against the previous year, with this segment
accounting for 35% of the overall revenues. The head of the
Intercontinental Hotel, which posted a 13.8 million-euro turnover
last year and 2.6 million euros in losses, says the hotel had a
less than 50% occupancy rate in the first eight months of this
year, down 7% on the similar period of last year.