5,000 rooms for Warsaw, the rest – not worse

A high activity of investors could be observed in this market segment for several years, thanks to which the hotel facilities in our country have been continuously developing, states a Walter Herz report. As Walter Herz experts note, the demand for hotel services in Poland is constantly growing, both from tourists and business customers. According to the Central Statistical Office, the number of tourists using overnight stays in hotel facilities in the first ten months of 2017 increased by 1.5 mln compared to the same period a year earlier, which is a 6-pct increase. The Polish hotel market is still a developing market, although it already includes over 2,700 categorized hotel facilities that offer a total of over 135,000 rooms. This is still not much compared to the markets of Western Europe and the number of hotel rooms allocated to residents of a given country, reports Walter Herz. Walter Herz calculates that the hotel market in Warsaw will gain over 5,000 rooms in the next three years. There is still room for new facilities of all categories in the capital. Specialists note that business customers dominated the Warsaw market until recently, now Warsaw is increasingly visited by tourists, whom there are already over 10 mln of per year. The elegant Raffles hotel with 103 rooms is to be completed at the site of the former Europejski Hotel on ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście this year. The next hotel projects which will be completed include: the Renaissance hotel at the Chopin Airport with 225 rooms, the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Służewiec Przemysłowy with 192 rooms and Moxy Koneser in Warsaw’s Praga district which will offer 141 rooms, list Walter Herz experts. Other hotel facilities that will welcome guests this year include: 163-room Hampton by Hilton on ul. Postępu, over 350-room Krakowska Residence in Warsaw's Włochy district and 220-room Ibis Styles on ul. Grzybowska. Warsaw facilities to be put into service in 2018 will include a total of over 2,000 rooms. In the following years there will be further openings in Warsaw: 330-room Motel One in Śródmieście, 120-room Praski Port, 300-room combo of Residence Inn and Moxy as well as other Ibis Styles hotels. The Warsaw market will also include the Holiday Inn at the West Railway Station with 217 rooms, the Focus Hotel in Służewiec with 238 rooms, the 150-room Puro Warszawa Centrum hotel and a hotel of a luxury boutique brand in the Old Town, which will offer more than 100 rooms. The first Staybridge Suites hotel, which belongs to the InterContinental group and will provide 190 rooms, will also be completed in Ursynów. The projects to be launched in Gdańsk soon include: a 76-room Ibis Budget hotel in Jelitkowo, a 354-room Deo hotel on the Spichrzów Island, a 236-room Holiday Inn, a 140-room Grano Residence as well as a 154-room Hampton by Hilton in the Old Town and a hotel in Dwór Uphagena, which will offer 150 rooms. Over the next two years the city will gain a total of over a thousand accommodation places. MGallery by Sofitel with 190 rooms, and the Hotel Monastery of the Arche group with 200 rooms are planned in Wrocław for 2019. The hotels to be opened in Krakow include: a Puro hotel in Kazimierz offering 200 rooms, Radisson Red hotel with 230 rooms, B&B Hotel Krakow Centrum with 130 rooms and two boutique hotels Ferreus and H15 including a total of 140 rooms. The Autograph Collection Hotel with 125 rooms of this lifestyle brand owned by Marriott International will also be built in the centre of Krakow, on ul. Stradomska, in the immediate vicinity of Wawel,, which will be the first hotel of this exclusive line in Poland. The construction of the Best Western Balice Airport hotel will also start this year. The opening of Hampton by Hilton (117 rooms) and Focus Hotel Poznań (94) is planned for this year in Poznań while the Moxy hotel (120) will be opened at the Ławica airport in the future. Furthermore, the Best Western Hotels & Resorts chain will be joined by two newly-established Poznań facilities: the Edison Park Hotel under the Premier Collection brand and a hotel Sure Hotel brand on the Market Square while the existing Hotel Edison, located in Baranowo near Poznań, will undergo a modernization process. Walter Herz experts note that there is an increasing interest in smaller urban centres in Poland among investors operating in the hotel segment and international franchisors. As an example, they mention the implementation of a hotel facility in a revitalized piano factory in Kalisz. The Calisia One office, hotel and cultural facility is being built at its site, which will include the Hampton by Hilton hotel with more than 100 rooms to be opened this year. In Oświęcim, there will be 120 rooms in the Hampton by Hilton hotel. New international brands will also open in Polish resorts, including Radisson Blu hotel in Zakopane with 158 rooms and 68 suites and the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Kołobrzeg. Walter Herz experts point out that the structure of the Polish hotel base is dominated by individual hotels owned by Polish companies that operate them individually. The same is true with the demand for accommodation. In Poland, it is mainly domestic tourists that drive the boom in the hotel sector. One third of foreigners and two thirds of Poles use hotel services in our country.