Ramada Plaza: World crisis is hurting our business

Ramada Plaza Hotel in northern Bucharest, held by businessman Gabriel Popoviciu, is revising its budget downwards this year mainly due to the world crisis that is starting to take its toll on local business travel. “We sought to attain five million euro turnover in the first year in business and now revenues are as estimated. However, because of the conditions on the world market, business travel is witnessing a slight decline. As a result, we believe we will adjust our turnover estimates to 3.5 million euros by the end of 2008,” said Daniel Ben-Yehuda, general manager of Ramada Plaza. The four-star Ramada Plaza Hotel became operational in March and has about 300 rooms. The hotel saw 60% occupancy rate during weekdays in its first four months in business. About 90% of the hotel’s revenues come from business travel, but only 10% from leisure travel, so that the world crisis and the summer months will affect its future performance. “We believe average occupancy over the next six months will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50%, considering the third quarter includes two summer months, which are slower in terms of business travel,” Daniel Ben-Yehuda added.