Ibis Romania increases occupancy by 11 pct in 2013

The four Ibis hotels in Romania have reported some 170,000 accommodation nights in 2013, meaning an occupancy rate of 61 percent. This was up by 11 percent compared to the previous year, said company representatives. In 2014 the hotel chain wants to consolidate its results, both in terms or accommodation and for the events segment.

The 2013 results were generated by the growth of the leisure segment which generated 28 percent of Ibis Romania business last year, up from 23 percent in 2012. A total of 47,998 accommodation nights were bought by guests travelling for leisure, up 34.5 percent y-o-y. “The growth of the leisure segment for the four Ibis hotels in Romania comes from both our increased promotion efforts – we have permanently launched packages (…) such as city breaks, weekend or last minute offers – but also from a slight increase of foreign tourists’ interest in Romania as a destination for leisure traveling,” said Ioan David, general director Ibis Romania. Romanians represented 70 percent of the hotels’ total number of guests last year, followed by German, Italian, French and Greek guests, each with a share of about 5 percent.

A growing trend in 2013 has been the increase of online reservations – 27 percent of total reservations.

On the events segment, Ibis Romania reported a 17 percent increase in the number of sold conference rooms.

Ibis Romania operates four three-star hotels in Romania which combine 760 rooms and 24 conference halls. Two of the four hotels are located in Bucharest, Ibis Gara de Nord (opened in 2001) and Ibis Parliament (2005), and the other two are in Constanta (2005) and Sibiu (2009). The hotels are run in partnership under a form of management contract with Continental Hotels which actually owns the properties.

Ibis Romania reported a turnover of about RON 37 million (approximately EUR 8.3 million) for 2012, up 5 percent y-o-y and targeted a 6 percent for 2013, David told BR in an interview last year.

Ibis Romania is part of the Accor group which is also present locally with the Novotel brand (one hotel in Bucharest) and Pullman (one hotel in Bucharest). Luc Gesvret, senior vice president of operations at Accor, told BR in November 2012 that the company was planning to bring a new hotel brand in Romania and that in the next five to ten years it will at least double the number of hotels it manages locally.