Check in via camera, food behind the door: Prague opened the first covid hotel
The Czech Inn Hotels hotel chain opened its first covid hotel on Wednesday. He tries to improve his pandemic-affected business and at the same time connect it with what can be liberation for many people with milder manifestations of covid -19 at the moment – the opportunity to isolate themselves from family in quarantine and concentrate on their work in peace without fear, that he will infect her.
“Yesterday we accommodated the first three guests, another about ten are reported. They are mostly people from the middle or upper middle class, “says Petr Chábera, marketing manager of the company, which manages more than 2,200 rooms (6,000 beds) in 23 hotels in Prague. It operates other hotels in Brno and Harrachov. Its founder and owner is Jaroslav Svoboda.
The four-star covid hotel Legerova 9 operates contactlessly for its guests. Or book a room via the website or book by phone, where they will immediately communicate all the necessary information about the accommodation and their requirements.
Check in to the hotel communicates with the reception via the screen and does not come into contact with a personal hotel. He finds the key right in the doorway of the room.
Contactlessly, only by phone or mobile applications running other hotel services, ie food delivery to the room, delivery of consignments and the like. There is also a doctor’s phone in case the disease worsens, the host will be taken to hospital. Laundry is also provided, where the guest puts his laundry in a special bag, leaves it behind the door, and then picks it up cleanly again. However, he has to make the new sheets himself.
How long the guest stays with covid-19 depends only on him. Prices of standard rooms start at a thousand per night, with breakfast then at 1200 crowns, business class can be purchased for 1500 crowns and the apartment – in case more members of one household would be infected – can be booked from 2000 crowns up. For an additional fee there is also half board, full board or laundry.
If you want to order another meal from outside, a personal one will bring it to your door. The host is not allowed to leave the room during their stay, according to these special hotel policies. After its isolation, the room goes through a one-day quarantine, where it is disinfected. The hotel corridors are also regularly disinfected.
“We don’t expect what anyone can give us and we try to manage various programs ourselves, with which we can improve our sales. The idea for the hotel fell at a meeting last week, and after the announcement of the state of emergency, we implemented it immediately, “describes the background of the new Cháber project.
Already in the summer, the hotel network transformed part of its rooms in Prague 2, 7 and 10 into apartments. They are used by people who need short-term or medium-term accommodation and are looking for favorable prices.
“And yet the rental prices in Prague have fallen, so there is great interest in this accommodation. Maybe because we offer it from CZK 6,500 per month, which is a good price for many customers even in a highly competitive environment. So far, the biggest interest is in the Uno hotel in Prague 10, where we have currently noticed the interest of students leaving the dormitories of Charles University, “says the head of marketing of the hotel network.
The group’s hotels in Prague 1 remained open to tourists, who last year accounted for 80 percent of all accommodation capacities in the most exposed places in the center of Prague, but now their number has decreased to a few percent. Hotels in Prague 3, 7, 9 and 10 are available to corporate clients who need to run their business in the capital. Their share also shrunk from a unit of tens of percent last year.
“Another project we are solving is the conversion of parts of the rooms into apartments for the elderly. However, we are still working on it there, because we are mapping the best rooms with regard to the possible reduced mobility of older people. The rooms also need to be redone, ”adds Chábera
Czech Inn Hotels, which owns two hotels and leases others or manages them on the basis of management contracts – for example, Don Giovanni, The Grand Mark and Iris Eden hotels – earned more than a billion crowns last year. According to Chábera, his sales are down 75 percent year-on-year.
According to the Association of Hotels and Restaurants of the Czech Republic, almost half of Prague hotels are considering the temporary closure of hotels in Prague, compared to 30 percent in the regions. Another ten percent of hotels have been closed since March.
The association is now negotiating with Deputy Prime Minister Karel Havlíček on compensation for accommodation and catering services. It wants to negotiate, for example, 100% wage compensation for the closure period, extend the moratorium on loans or renew the Covid Accommodation program.
The government approved on Wednesday that it is selling the Antivirus employment support program, which companies that have to close will reimburse entire wages with contributions of up to 50,000 crowns. The Cabinet also promised to extend the use for Covid Rent, in which entrepreneurs contribute 50 percent to commercial rent up to ten million crowns for July, August and September. Unlike the first call, the application will not condition the provider on the landlord’s discount.
The association is also negotiating with the government on the conditions under which the sick would be able to move the sick with covid-19 to hotels. This proposal would help Czech hospitals cope with the increasing number of hospitalized people who do not need acute care.