“Bucharest has become more attractive to investors; the hotel business is profitable, generating higher yields than other real estate sectors. There areas are not so well covered. There is still room for new investments,” says Sorin Ionescu, consultant with Fivestar Hospitality.
Several local entrepreneurs from the owner of the Niro group, to the Dogaru family (Mercure Hotel) and Mohammad Murad (the largest investor in seaside hotels) and foreign investors such as Lithuania’s Apex Alliance, bet on the hotel market in Bucharest, where they are investing tens of millions of euros in new hotels. Demand for accommodation has been on the rise in the last few years, stimulating new investment.
Bucharest can accommodate 19,000 people in hotels, accounting for 10% for the capacity in the entire country. Every year, 2 million people stay in hotels in Bucharest. In comparison, Warsaw has 111 hotels, which can sleep 26,000, where tourists stayed 5.5 million nights in 2017 compared with 3.1 million in Bucharest.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)