$12m Israeli investments in hotels

Israeli-held M.T.IL Group is planning to invest some $10-$12 million in the hotel sector this year, chairman Tonya Halpern said. M.T.IL already holds two hotels in Bucharest, Central and Opera, with the latter reopened at the end of last week, following refurbishment works that took 1.6 million euros to complete. “We have one or two more hotels scheduled for this year,” Halpern said, adding no decision had been made yet as to either buy old hotels and refurbish them or build new ones from scratch. “The investment in the Opera Hotel will be recovered in about seven years, if the average occupancy rate reaches 60%-65%, as anticipated,” Halpern specified. Opera is ranked as three stars and has 33 rooms, with tariffs ranging from 70 to 90 euros a night. The occupancy rate was 80% on the reopening day, company officials say. The owner of the hotel is the Hotel Central & Opera joint venture, in its turn held by Capitol SA – 30% and M.T.IL Group – 70%. Capitol SA is controlled by the Tourism Ministry (50.716%). ZF