For many years, July, along with August, has been the month in highest demand from tourists wanting to go to the seaside. But only until this year. There never were so many seaside hotels closed in July, and specialists say this season will be the same as the one last year at best, which was the slowest in 12 years, according to hotel operators.
The big tourism investors, however, are still allotting tens of millions of dollars for building or modernising hotels and the seaside remains the main attraction, albeit estimates show no increase in revenues.
Subsequently, whereas Perla Majestic Grup, which has already consolidated its presence on the Black Sea Coast where it holds six hotels, is planning to invest in other parts of the country, while SIF Transilvania will allot $38 million to modernise its assets in the Black Sea resorts. The two companies are among the largest hotel owners in Romania.
Perla Majestic Grup (PMG), part of the Spring Time holding, will allocate more than $20 million in the next 12 months in order to refurbish the Cozia Hotel in Jupiter and the Select Hotel in Mamaia, as well as to build two new hotels in Bucharest and Predeal, and then expand the Coral Beach complex.
“Besides our hotels at the seaside, we are planning to also build two hotels, one in Valea Prahovei, in the Predeal – Råul Rece area and the other in Bucharest. They will require about $10 million investments,” Mohammad Murad, PMG chairman said.
He did not provide further details, though, merely saying negotiations over buying the land were still carried out.
On the other hand, the company will allot $8-$10 million for building the Coral Beach II, a complex to accommodate 1,500 people, also including restaurants, shops, swimming pools, playgrounds set to neighbour the Coral Beach I (that can accommodate 450 people). The complex will be located on an over 150,000 sqm piece of land in far north of Mamaia, near the entrance to Navodari by the former Mamaia camping site. “We’ve built the first Coral Beach to make the area popular. Actually, the project of the complex is the one to be built over the next two years,” Murad added.
The group will begin refurbishing the Cozia Hotel in Jupiter this fall, which it took over in March and set aside $3 million for this operation. It reopened the Majestic Hotel (formerly known as Transilvania) in Olimp at the end of last week. It bought this hotel during last year’s privatisation organised by the Tourism Ministry and allotted $2 million for its modernisation. The investments will be covered from both the company’s funds and from banking loans.
Perla Majestic Grup holds the Perla, Majestic and Select Hotels in Mamaia, the Majestic Hotel in Olimp, the Cozia Hotel in Jupiter and the Coral Beach Complex in Navodari, which can jointly accommodate 2,800 people. The company has invested some $15 million in tourism over the last four years, $10 million of which in refurbishment alone.
SIF Transilvania on the other hand has prepared nearly $40 million to be invested over the next three years in the modernisation of the eight hotels and several villas held by the Black Sea Coast-based companies which it controls, Eforie SA, Saturn SA, Venus SA, Carmen Silva SA and Miorita Estival 2002 SA, set to merge this year.
The hotels will be ranked as two and three-stars and target small and medium-income tourists, according to SIF Transilvania’s chairman Mihai Fercala.