The beginning of the new year is a time of summaries, analyzes and industry reports that summarize the condition of the sector and forecast its condition for subsequent periods. Very optimistic studies of this type perceive the hotel sector, which is followed by the development of the Focus Hotels chain belonging to the Grupa Kapitałowa IMMOBILE, thus confirming these assumptions.
According to experts of Walter Herz, we record a continuous growth in demand for hotel services in Poland – both from tourists and business customers. According to the data from the Central Statistical Office, the number of tourists using overnight stays in hotel facilities during the first months of 2017 increased by 6% year by year, i.e. about 1.5 million people.
The Polish hotel market has over 2.7 thousand categorized facilities, with a total of over 135 thousand rooms. This is not much compared to Western European markets and the number of rooms per one inhabitant in western countries, which is why our local market is still considered as developing. This year, the number of accommodations in our country will increase by more than ten thousand. About 240 of them will operate under Focus, in such cities as Sopot, Poznan and Lublin. The next will be provided by the opening of the facility in Warsaw in the coming years, and we talk here only about currently signed contracts. This number can be replicated through new contracts. The chain currently holds numerous talks at various stages of advancement, regarding the chain expansion in the country and abroad. The new year 2018 will certainly bring the company further successes in openings.
The biggest Polish agglomerations in the country have a great investment potential, which mainly relates to Warsaw, where, as already mentioned, the Focus chain facility with 238 rooms is being created. According to analysts of Walter Herz, the metropolitan hotel market will be enriched by over 5 thousand rooms over the next three years. There is still a place for new establishments of all categories. Specialists note that until recently the Warsaw market was dominated by business customers, and now Warsaw is more and more frequently visited by tourists, in the number of over 10 million per year.
Particular attention of the Focus chain is paid to the development on eastern markets. In the last quarter of 2017, the sales office of the company in Bucharest was established, which will be responsible for the chain development in Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This direction of expansion is guided by the prospective situation on these markets, including the fastest growing RevPAR indicator, which is considered the most important value when calculating the financial performance of the hotel. It provides information about the income per one available room, in the form of relations of current rates to the occupancy rate. This indicator, according to the report of the Hotel Market in Poland 2017 of the Swiat Hoteli magazine, increased within 12 months (until June 2017) in Central and Eastern Europe over 10 times more dynamically than in Western European countries. The countries of these regions are perceived as relatively safe and are preferred by tourists for this reason. This knowledge was the basis for broad market analyzes carried out by the Focus chain in connection with the planned foreign expansion.
