Compared to Vienna and Budapest, Prague has fewer luxury hotels, with several opening soon
The center of Prague is an attractive destination for tourists, they are most attracted by the historic center. Photo: Jan Puci
Although Prague’s hotel capacity has been partially reduced during the covid-19 pandemic, the Czech metropolis is still one of the most attractive hotel markets in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, by 2024, further accommodation facilities are expected to open in Prague, mainly in the luxury segment, which will offer 2,000 hotel rooms and more than 1,700 square meters of meeting space. Hana Krejbichová, spokeswoman for the non-profit organization Prague Convention Bureau, which is the official representative of Prague in the area of the congress industry, informed about it.
The number of mass accommodation facilities in Prague remained relatively stable from 2015 to 2019. During this period, the Czech metropolis offered accommodation in approximately 800 collective accommodation facilities with a capacity of around 42,000 rooms and 90,000 beds, mainly in the segment of three- and four-star hotels.
A significant change occurred in 2020, when the capacity of Prague accommodation facilities exceeded 44,000 rooms for the first time since 2012. In 2021, more than 1,500 rooms fell on the Prague market.
“Prague, with its immense beauty and unique cultural heritage, deserves to be a premium European destination. At the same time, it also needs suitable infrastructure, including luxury hotels, of which there are still few. For example, Vienna and Budapest have twice and 2.4 times more capacity of luxury hotels than Prague. Despite the opening of hotels such as Fairmont, W and Almanac X, Prague will not catch up with these destinations in terms of the capacity of luxury facilities, while the Czech metropolis should have installed more to reach its full potential,” said David Nath, partner and head of the hotel team at CEE and SEE, Cushman & Wakefield.
At the same time as capacity and quality increased, the average price of Prague hotel rooms also rose for a long time before the pandemic. While in 2014 the average host paid 1,980 crowns per room per night, in 2019 the price was already at the level of 2,370 crowns (93 euros).
However, the trend of rising prices does not only apply to Prague, but to the entire region of Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time, Prague hotels were among those with the highest average occupancy. In the pre-crisis year 2019, Prague was the fifth best in Europe with almost 80 percent hotel occupancy, but in 2021, due to the pandemic, it ranked among the worst, with an average occupancy of 26 percent. In the year, the price per room also fell to a value of around 1,600 crowns (64 euros).
“The Prague hotel market is quickly recovering from the pandemic, and according to the latest STR data, the occupancy rate of Prague hotels reached 74 percent in October. This ranks the Czech metropolis in 20th place among the 35 most important markets in Europe, with Prague leaving destinations such as Vienna and Budapest behind. However, Prague hoteliers must be more aggressive in their pricing strategy in order to face the growth caused by cost inflation and especially a suitable partner with energy prices,” said Bořivoj Vokřínek, in strategic consulting and head of research in the hotel real estate department for the EMEA region, Cushman & Wakefield.
Before the outbreak of the pandemic, the convention industry was also doing very well. According to the aggregated data of the Prague Convention Bureau, in the record year 2019, 5,944 events took place in Prague, which were used by over 715,000 delegates from all over the world.
This is the most since 2014, when the organization began to compile data from the statistics of the Czech Statistical Office, which, however, do not include events outside hotel facilities, and its own statistics from partner entities, which are also the largest Prague congress centers.
During the pandemic, the number of events and delegates participating in one of the TOP 10 most popular congress destinations in the world fell by almost 80 percent.
“Despite the difficult situation and a slight decrease in the number of accommodation facilities and owners, in most cases, they did not stop planning the construction or renovation of their hotel facilities. Before the pandemic, at least 15 key conference hotels were renovated, and many accommodation facilities, on the contrary, took advantage of low occupancy to speed up renovation work,” said Roman Muška, director of the Prague Convention Bureau.
“We recently welcomed in Prague, for example, the Andaz Prague hotel of the American Hyatt chain, Stages Hotel Prague, Tribute Portfolio Hotel of the Marriott chain, or a new accommodation concept in the form of The Julius residence of the Julius Meinl group. Of the boutique hotels, I can offer two apartment-type hotels of the Czech network OREA Hotels & Resorts or Chevron Hote,” he added.
More than a hundred more rooms have also been added in the newly renovated Prague Marriott hotel. Together, all these changes increased Prague’s capacity by an additional 856 rooms and 1,130 square meters of meeting space.
By the end of 2024, the accommodation and meeting capacity of Prague should increase by several new hotel facilities of higher categories. In the first half of 2023, the former Alcron hotel will open after reconstruction, under the new name Almanac X, which will offer a capacity of 204 rooms. It should be followed by the new W Prague hotel with 161 rooms and 350 square meters of meeting space, created by the renovation of the former Hotel Evropa on Wenceslas Square.
Other larger hotel projects planned for 2023 include the 170-room Mozart Hotel. In the coming years, we will also see an expansion of the capacities of already established hotels. Along with the planned complete renovation, Botanique Hotel Prague will expand by another 56 rooms, which will thus have a total of 262 rooms and new meeting spaces with daylight with a total area of 450 square meters. The Hotel Carol of the Jan Hotels group should also expand by the same number of rooms. After the expansion, it would offer a total of 117 rooms.
In the next two years, the Zleep Radlická hotel of the Deutsche Hospitality chain will be added with 166 rooms, the Grande Amade Hotel with 165 rooms, and the Motel ONE at Masaryk station, which should have a capacity of 382 rooms.
In the first half of 2024, the former InterContinental hotel should also reopen under the name Fairmont Golden Prague Hotel with 297 rooms and 800 square meters of meeting space. The segment of smaller hotels offering a capacity of under 100 beds will also grow, a total of four such boutique establishments should open. Together, these hotels will expand Prague’s accommodation capacity by 254 rooms.
“We hope that even those projects that have been postponed due to the pandemic, such as the construction of the Hard Rock Hotel, which was originally supposed to open in 2023 and was supposed to be among the representatives of large congress hotels with a capacity of 523 rooms and 5,500 m2 of meeting space. A long-announced project is also the construction of a luxury hotel in the U Sixtů building near the Old Town Square, which should have 90 rooms,” added Roman Muška.