Germany is stepping up measures to ensure the safety of its employees in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Saturday, February 12. “I have decided to strengthen the measures already taken to prevent the crisis. At the moment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is holding a meeting with the relevant departments and security agencies to implement these decisions,” the press service of the German Foreign Ministry cited Baerbock’s words on Twitter.
Hotel occupancy in Kyiv has decreased from 65% in October to 53% in November, in Lviv from 60% to 41%, according to a study of the Hotel Matrix project.
According to the study, in November, the occupancy of hotels in Kharkiv also decreased – from 56% to 45%, in Odesa – from 43% to 32%, and in Dnipro – from 42% to 36%.
In general, in November, the occupancy rate of hotels in Ukraine amounted to 44%, ADR (average rate) was UAH 2068, RevPAR (revenue per available room per day) was UAH 908.
According to Hotel Matrix, all monitored cities showed a decrease in ADR in November compared to the previous month, except for Dnipro, where the indicator grew by 6% and amounted to UAH 4,427. At the same time, in Odesa, the decrease in the indicator was 8.6% (to UAH 1,493), Lviv – 16% (to UAH 2,028), Kyiv – 3% (to UAH 2,147), and Kharkiv – 16.5% (to UAH 2,235).
RevPar in November 2021 in Odesa fell by 31.7%, to UAH 480, in Lviv – by 44.5%, to UAH 822, in Kyiv – by 1.54%, to UAH 1,130, in Kharkiv – by 33.4%, to UAH 996, in Dnipro – by 15%, to UAH 1,526.
Statistical data on Dnipro are presented by the hotel market of four-star and five-star hotels, in Kharkiv by two-star, four-star and five-star hotels. The statistics of Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv are presented by three-star, four-star and five-star hotels.
Hotel Matrix is a web-based hotel analytics product developed by specialists from Poland and Ukraine. It was launched in May 2020. Now, 154 hotels are connected to the Hotel Matrix.
Private houses in the suburbs of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro and Lviv from July to September 2021 have risen in price by an average of 3-5%, President of the Association of Real Estate Specialists (Realtors) of Ukraine Yuriy Pita has told Interfax-Ukraine. “Over the past three months, a slowdown in the growth rate of their cost has been observed in the market for private estates. At the moment, the demand for private houses has been met by almost 90%,” Pita said. According to him, houses with an area of up to 150 square meters, located in the near suburbs (up to 20 km) of million-plus cities, were actively getting more expensive. The cost of other properties in the third quarter increased insignificantly, within 2.5-3%.
According to the association, a gradual decrease in the demand has been observed since the second half of this year: from July to September, the number of potential buyers decreased by 10%.
“Gradually, the supply begins to prevail over the existing demand, this is a significant factor for pricing in the segment of private houses,” the specialist said.
According to him, by the end of the year the price situation in the segment of private estates will remain stable with insignificant price fluctuations within 1.5% for small houses.
“According to the forecasts of the association, the cost of private houses is the ceiling for the existing demand. And further price increases will not be economically justified. Price stability may last until April 2022,” he said.
According to Pita, prices of land plots for private development in the third quarter increased by an average of 5%. At the same time, more than 60% of the demand is concentrated on plots with an area of 8-15 acres with supplied communications in picturesque locations at a distance of up to 20 km from the city limits. The demand for plots for construction of cottage townships remains stable, but here the choice of options is not very large, the expert notes.
He believes that price stability in the segment of land plots can hold out at least until April 2022, the start of a new active season.
The Irish low cost airline Ryanair has announced the launch of a new flight from Lviv to Manchester (the UK), which will operate twice a week from November 5, 2021.
“As Europe’s largest airline, Ryanair remains committed to rebuilding the European aviation and travel industry by resuming connections and expanding its passenger network to more than 225 million by 2026. As Ryanair hosts 55 more Boeing 737-8200 Gamechanger aircraft this year, this winter we are pleased to add this new route from Lviv to Manchester,” the airline’s press service quoted commercial director Jason McGuinness as saying.
At the moment, there are no direct flights to this direction.
As reported, Wizz Air intends to launch 26 new flights from four cities of Ukraine in 2021-2022 and expects to increase passenger traffic by 120%.
FLY, LVIV, MANCHESTER, RYANAIR
Lviv IT-company SoftServe plans to invest over $100 million in the construction of a creative office campus on the site of Lviv penal colony No. 48 acquired for UAH 377.5 million at a privatization auction.
According to a SoftServe press release on the Business Wire portal, construction will begin in 2022 and it will take about five years. An international architectural bureau will be involved in the work on the project.
“The new campus will not only breathe new life into the whole district of Lviv, but will also continue the development of the city as a major educational and technological hub in Ukraine and in the world,” the co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of SoftServe, Oleh Denys, said.
According to the project, the campus will house SoftServe offices, as well as the company’s corporate university, conference rooms and exhibition grounds, a school and a kindergarten, and apartments.
As reported, SoftServe acquired Lviv penal colony No. 48 on a 10.7 hectare plot for UAH 377.5 million at a privatization auction held on June 3.
SoftServe specializes in software production, development services, quality control and support of information systems and business solutions. To date, about 10,000 employees of the company work in 38 offices. The main offices of the company are located in Lviv and Austin (Texas, the United States). The company’s development centers are located in Lviv, Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernyvtsi, Sofia (Bulgaria) and Wroclaw, Bialystok, Gliwice and Warsaw (Poland).
The city of Odesa in June this year attracted five-year loans from the state-owned Oschadbank, Ukreximbank and Ukrgasbank for a total of UAH 1.2 billion, and the cities of Lviv, Novomoskovsk and Khmelnytsky – three more five-year loans for UAH 350 million.
According to the information of the Ministry of Finance on its website, apart from Khmelnytsky, all loans were obtained at a floating rate pegged to the key policy rate of the National Bank of Ukraine.
In the case of Odesa, the loan price was the NBU key policy rate + 4.5%: Oschadbank and Ukreximbank each allocated UAH 450 million, and Ukrgasbank – UAH 300 million.
Lviv managed to attract funds the cheapest of all – UAH 220 million from Ukrgasbank at the NBU key policy rate + 2.5%, while the smaller city – Novomoskovsk (Dnipropetrovsk region) raised UAH 70 million from Ukreximbank at the NBU key policy rate + 5.3%.
Khmelnytsky was able to get UAH 60 million from Ukrgasbank at 11.9%.
