Hilton has entered into a franchise agreement with Gefest Group (the real estate developer, Odessa) on the implementation of a hotel project in Odessa, which is scheduled to open in the spring of 2025. According to a press release of Hilton, the hotel near the Arcadia entertainment area will be managed by Cyprus-based Millennium Hospitality. The new hotel will become part of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts chain.“There is clear opportunity for growth in Ukraine, with two hotels set to join our portfolio alongside Hilton Kyiv. Growing international interest in Odessa and robust domestic demand make Hilton Odessa an important addition to our European pipeline. We are pleased to be working with Gefest Group to introduce our flagship brand to southern Ukraine,” Senior Vice President for Development at Hilton Europe, the Middle East and Africa Patrick Fitzgibbon was quoted in the report. According to the report, the project provides for the construction of two buildings in Vanny and Primorsky lanes in Odesa. The hotel will have 145 rooms. The hotel infrastructure will include two swimming pools, one of which is panoramic, four restaurants and bars, a conference center (800 square meters), a banquet hall (300 square meters), a rooftop lounge area, and a spa center (600 square meters). Gefest Group was founded in Odessa in 1997. The company’s portfolio includes more than 40 office, retail and residential real estate projects in Ukraine and Europe at different stages of implementation.
The State Tourism Development Agency recommends that hotels take measures to vaccinate their staff against COVID-19 in the near future. Hotels, whose personnel are fully vaccinated, will be provided with a “safety mark”, head of the State Agency for Tourism Development Maryana Oleskiv told Interfax-Ukraine.
“To organize vaccination, the authorized person of the hotel must provide information to the State Tourism Development Agency (location of the hotel, number of employees for vaccination, contact person). We will transfer this information to the Ministry of Health to ensure priority vaccination of the tourism industry,” Oleskiv said.
The head of State Tourism Development Agency said that after vaccination of all hotel personnel, they will be provided with a confirmation in the form of a “Safety Sign” sticker, and this information will be included in the list of State Tourism Development Agency hotels, the staff of which is fully vaccinated.
“The list of such hotels will be published on the official website of State Tourism Development Agency,” Oleskiv said.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine will transfer from its portfolio of assets three hotels in Kyiv, Lviv and Kryvy Rih to the State Property Fund (SPF) for further privatization, Deputy Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko has said.
He said that these are the hotels Vlasta in Lviv, Kozatsky in Kyiv and Bratislava in Kryvy Rih.
“We thank the Minister of Defense. The letters have already been sent to the Fund, and I hope that in the near future these facilities will go for privatization,” Tymoshenko said at the Ukraine 30. Economy without Oligarchs forum in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to him, these hotels are non-profit-making.
Accor Live Limitless will open three new hotels in Ukraine in 2022-2023: Ibis & Adagio Kyiv, Ibis Lviv and Novotel Lviv, Alexis Delaroff, the director general of Accor New East Europe, has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“For Accor Ukraine is an important market, and we strive to develop it further. Accor is already the largest international operator in Ukraine, and if we take into account the projects at the stage of signing or design, we are strengthening our positions,” he said.
According to him, the pandemic has made adjustments to the plans for the implementation of Ibis & Adagio Kyiv, the opening of this combo hotel is likely to occur next year.
“The project is now moving forward dynamically,” the expert said.
Two more projects are at a high stage of implementation in Lviv. According to him, Ibis Lviv will open in 2022, Novotel Lviv in 2023.
“Odesa, Dnipro, and other cities are also interesting to us. We are constantly looking for new projects and partners,” he said.
Accor S.A. Is the largest international hotel operator. The company was founded in 1967. It is headquartered in the Paris suburb Evry.
Accor Group unites more than 5,100 hotels in 110 countries of the world.
The maximum occupancy of rooms in February was recorded in hotels in Kharkiv of 41%, while in Lviv of 39%, Kyiv of 34%, Odesa of 24%, Hotel Matrix said.
“Kharkiv in February was able to overtake Lviv in all respects. Let me remind that according to the results of January, the occupancy of hotels in Lviv was 35%, in Kharkiv was 31%. In such a change of leader, one can see a manifestation of the growth of business activity. But it is necessary to clarify that in Kharkiv there is a lower offer of room stock of 2.3 ones per 1,000 inhabitants. For comparison, in Lviv this figure is 4.3 rooms, in Kyiv it is 4.5, in Odesa it is 6.3,” project supervisor of Hotel Matrix Olha Mischenko told Interfax-Ukraine.
The increase of business activity is indirectly showed by the dynamics of the average tariff (ADR): UAH 2,262 in Kharkiv (against UAH 2,222 in January) and UAH 1,707 (against UAH 1,609) in Kyiv. At the same time, the ADR of Lviv dropped to UAH 1,844 (UAH 2,236), in Odesa to UAH 1,294 (UAH 1,397).
According to analytics, revenue per available number per day (RevPAR) in Kharkiv in February amounted to UAH 925, Lviv to UAH 716, Kyiv to UAH 582, Odesa to UAH 310.
Hotel Matrix is a web-based hotel analytics product developed by specialists from Poland and Ukraine. It was launched in May 2020. Now 150 hotels are connected to Hotel Matrix.
No more than ten hotels representing international chains are planned to be opened in Ukraine in the next two years, International Relations Director of the Ukrainian Hotel & Resort Association (UHRA), partner of BURFORD Management & Consultancy, Ivan Lun has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“Today, only 17 hotels operate under international brands in Ukraine. This is a paltry figure: compare it with 185 branded hotels in Poland, a country comparable to ours in terms of geography, population and economic potential,” he said.
According to the expert, this year the Radisson Hotel City Center Odesa (90 rooms), Best Western Plus Lviv Market Square (70 rooms), Ibis & Adagio Kyiv (combo, 265 rooms) are announced for opening. In the next two years, Ibis Lviv (100 rooms), Radisson Hotel Pechersk Park Kyiv (167 rooms), and Sheraton Kyiv Troitska Square (208 rooms) are planned to start operating, a bit later – Novotel Lviv (125 rooms) and Hampton by Hampton Lviv airport (138 rooms).
“These projects are just a small part of those branded hotel projects that have undergone careful urban and architectural planning, as well as painstaking contractual negotiations between the developers of these projects and global hotel groups. However, many projects that were planned to be operated under well-known hotel brands were not completed, in particular their construction,” Lun said.
The most active hotel chains in Ukraine today are Accor, Radisson, InterContinental, Marriott and Hilton, whose development offices are located in Moscow and Warsaw. In addition, according to the expert, the Wyndham chain and the Louvre Hotel Group have recently also promoted their brands and participated in tenders for projects, mainly through franchise supplies.
In general, the expert expects an intensification of the entry of international operators in 2024-2025.
