“The first half of 2011 came with a slight rise in demand for accommodation services,” said Howard Johnson general manager Sonia Nastase, adding that the event organizing segment “was extremely active, too.”
Nastase said she saw general efforts being made towards an exit from the “wait-and-see stance of 2009 and 2010” in the first half.
On the other hand, she added she noticed quite significant fluctuations from one month to the other, especially on the accommodation segment, which means the slightly upward trend is not really stable yet.
“Occupancy rate of the Howard Johnson Grand Plaza went up by about 4% in the first half of 2011 compared to the first half of last year, reaching 55%,” Nastase said.
Nastase is the first Romanian to run a five-star hotel in Bucharest, considering the managers of all the other five-star hotels, i.e. Intercontinental, Hilton, JW Marriott, Radisson Blu and Crowne Plaza, are expats.
The difficult market caused Grand Plaza Hotel, owner of Howard Johnson and of other assets, to end 2009 with EUR1.67 million losses, while revenue stood at EUR8.7 million, according to Trade Registry data. The company has yet to reveal whether it posted profit or losses last year, with revenues remaining almost unchanged.
(English version by Loredana Fratila Cristescu)