Sacher Hotels on the upswing after years of lockdown
“In terms of the total sales of the group, we will achieve around 70 percent of sales in 2019 for 2022, and over 90 percent for next year,” says Sacher CEO Matthias Winkler.
At the Sacher in Salzburg, compared to 2019 – before the lockdowns – it was a good 60 percent of room occupancy and just under 80 percent of sales. In 2019, the group of companies achieved sales of around 90 million euros.
Some rooms are significantly more expensive
“We are still not at the 2019 level, even if some months were above that,” reports the hotelier: “But for next year we have made bigger profits again, which we can immediately invest in projects – for example in the renovation of the Bristol – want to get stuck.”
These perspectives are only possible thanks to sometimes sharp increases in room prices.
In the Hotel Sacher in Vienna – the implementation, most traditional and most famous location – the group of companies booked rooms this year at around 70 percent of the level of 2019, and sales at around 80 percent. “You can see from this that we still have too few guests coming to Vienna,” said the Sacher group boss.
Energy costs sometimes quintupled
The high inflation and extremely high energy costs are now putting a heavy strain on hotel operations, the manager said. The latter would have even quintupled: “We can’t even say the electricity price yet because we can only do business on the spot market at the moment.”
In the Hotel Bristol in Vienna, which also belongs to the group, the system will not explode until next year because of other electricity contracts, in the Sacher in Vienna already now: “We are feeling the same for the gas price. We can no longer make a fixed deal – we go with the market.”
Nevertheless, room prices should not go up any further in 2023. “The price is of course an incredibly sensible topic that is discussed in public,” says the Sacher boss: “We can’t pass on our costs one-to-one in the price – the market wouldn’t stand it.”
20 jobs open in the Viennese Sacher alone
The Sacher Group is hoping for “a calming down and a stabilization of the situation” for the next year. Then you get profitability. This is currently bad, according to Winkler. In April 2020 he made the prognosis that the crisis would last several years, and that happened.
Another challenge is the sometimes extreme shortage of skilled workers. In order to be an attractive employer, the Sacher voluntarily pays a higher apprenticeship salary, for example 1,350 euros per month in the third year of apprenticeship, which is 300 euros more than usual: “It is clear that there are fewer skilled workers in almost all areas compared to before, and more who learn in the company.”
There are 20 vacancies at the Sacher in Vienna alone – “mostly in service and room service”. In total, the Sacher Group offers around 650 jobs. In the first half of 2023, 700 should be reached – before the lockdowns it was 800.