You can also listen to the interview in the audio version.

“People will be forced to investigate, the outlook is not entirely rosy, but we are not afraid,” says a man who started in the hotel business twenty years ago. At that time he bought two hotels in the Krkonoše Mountains, today he has 26 of them, making him one of the top three smaller chains in the country.

Even so, Jaroslav Svoboda wants to expand. Czech Inn Hotels plans to expand its chain of restaurants by eight additional addresses next year.

“We believe that it is worth investing, we want to buy hotels in Prague, Brno, Vienna and Budapest, we also have plans for Germany and Portugal,” SZ Byznys announced in the Agenda, saying that they have divided the investments for the whole year 2023. “We will add two to four hotels in the next half-year and the same amount for the rest of the year, we will definitely reach the number 30.”

According to his experience, the hotel market in Central Europe is going through changes that were started by the covid crisis. The new owner is also looking for hotels at luxury addresses.

“For sale, the hotels most indebted to the banks are the ones that are no longer willing to negotiate. And then hotels, which before covid were very focused on tourism,” says Jaroslav Svoboda.

According to his experience, the current hotel market projects inflation, rising operating costs and energy prices into sales prices. “How many more hotels does Prague have than it needs,” he says.

It is based on a comparison with the Austrian metropolis. “There have always been fewer people going to Prague than to Vienna, only in the last period before covid we overtook Vienna, but we have almost twice as many hotels as Vienna.”

“You can’t expect the war in Ukraine to end, and there will still be fewer tourists than we were used to,” he lists the risks for his business. Neither Americans nor Asians have yet returned to the Czech Republic.

Thus, no location is currently lucrative for hoteliers, which is also confirmed by the data of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants. Tourists are on time, they book accommodation at the last minute and choose long weekends rather than week-long stays.

“We have to try even harder to travel, so that our services are perfect and guests are satisfied,” said Jaroslav Svoboda, adding that he believes that people will not want to deny themselves connections and experiences with him in the long term.

You can find the entire interview in the introductory video, which you can play in your favorite podcast application.