JW Marriott sees business down by 8m euros

Bucharest’s biggest five-star hotel, JW Marriott Grand Hotel, which has 402 rooms, recorded a 20% turnover decline in euros last year, to 30 million euros, according to hotel officials and ZF calculations.

“We set out to attain a slight increase in our business compared with last year, which will mainly be generated by having the rooms occupied in the peak months, considering that we will not increase the average fee per room as long as demand on the market is still weak,” said Meda Vasiliu, the hotel’s marketing and sales manager. The five-star hotel ended 2008 with 17.1 million euros in losses and a 38 million-euro turnover, according to the Ministry of Finance.

In the first two months of this year, JW Marriott had a 7% higher occupancy rate against the similar period of last year. “(…) However, it is hard to say if there is a rebound on the hotel market, because January and February are traditionally off-season months, when there is a lower occupancy rate,” Vasiliu said. JW Marriott is held by Societatea Companiilor Hoteliere Grand, whose majority stake is held by Austria’s Bau Holding Strabag.