Intercontinental: Economic crisis would hurt 5-star hotel market

Business travel, the prime growth driver of Bucharest’s 5-star hotel market, could be at risk given the threat of a sizeable financial crisis to the corporate segment. “For now, we remain unaffected by exchange rate volatility and stock exchange declines. However, if this crisis has a major impact on the corporate segment, the whole 5-star market could go down, and our business is not diversified enough to distribute the impact. In Bucharest, the event and leisure segments are far too small to be able to offset the effects of a reduced corporate segment,” says Jonathan Soper, general manager of Intercontinental Bucharest, one of the largest 5-star hotels on the local market. Soper says if the leisure sector were to develop on the domestic market, too, the Intercontinental would have every chance of becoming the top-performing hotel in Central and Eastern Europe.