“Sochi Park” erased from the “Biblio-Globus” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 6 (7451) from 01/14/2023

One of the largest hotels in Sochi, the Sochi Park Hotel with 2,900 rooms in the Imereti Lowland, has changed its manager. Instead of the Biblio-Globus tour operator, the structure of Mantera Group of Companies Alexander Tkachev, who own the real estate, will develop the object. Several tour operators have already taken up the sale of accommodation at the hotel. The cost of rooms has increased significantly, which threatens to underload the facility.

Sochi Park Hotel has left the control of Biblio-Globus, it will be independently developed by the owner’s structures – Mantera Group of Companies, ex-head of the Ministry of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev. This was told to Kommersant by two interlocutors in the tourist market. According to one of them, the contract with the tour operator was not renewed. Mantera confirmed to Kommersant that the five-year contract with Biblio-Globus had expired. They added that the hotel is undergoing renovation, and in March the facility will open in an updated format. Biblio-Globus did not promptly respond.

The Sochi Park Hotel in the Imeretinskaya Valley for the 2014 Olympic Games was built by the structures of the Renova Group, founded by Viktor Vekselberg. She was engaged in the implementation of two hotels – for 720 and 2.88 thousand rooms. The first group handed over to the educational center “Sirius” at the end of 2014, the second at the end of 2016 was sold to the structures of Alexander Tkachev. Now “Sochi Park” consists of 12 buildings on eight floors with rooms of categories from “Standard” to “Superior Suite”. The object works in the category “three stars”. Initially, the hotel was managed by Azimut Hotels Alexander Klyachin, and in early 2017, Biblio-Globus became the operator.

According to the interlocutor of Kommersant in the tourist market, during the period of managing the tour operator, the average annual load of Sochi Park reached a very high 97-98%. Dumping tariffs in the off-season and periods of low demand helped to ensure the indicator, the source says. This year “Biblio-Globus”, according to him, will not sell places in the hotel. The interlocutor of Kommersant clarifies that the tour operator has a large amount of alternative proposals in Sochi.

This year, Sochi Park has a diversified model that provides for direct sales and quotas for market participants, the selection of the latter is still ongoing, says Mantera. Intourist told Kommersant that they signed a tour operator contract with Sochi Park Hotel, which implies extensive quotas of places. Sales have already started, and races are planned from the first days of March. The minimum cost of ground handling with hotel accommodation is 34.3 thousand rubles. for seven days for two guests, a tour with a departure from Moscow – 54.7 thousand rubles, specified in Intourist. Alean also plans to sell placements in Sochi Park, but so far they are negotiating the terms of the contract. Also, the hotel is in the range of “Dolphin”.

Sergey Romashkin, CEO of Dolphin, says that Mantera’s pricing policy is different from that pursued by Biblio-Globus. “Our agents note that prices for tourists for similar rooms have increased by several tens of percent, someone is talking about a two-fold increase,” he says. The founder of Ivashkevich Hospitality, Stanislav Ivashkevich, calls the change in strategy logical: Biblio-Globus acted as a tour operator, calculating the profitability of the package product, and for Mantera, the cash flow that the hotel itself and each room generates probably plays a role.

Based on this, Sergei Romashkin does not rule out that in the upcoming summer season Sochi Park may face underloading. “The facility will have to develop a new audience, talk about improving the quality of service,” he points out. In general, Mr. Romashkin predicts, the demand for holidays in Russian resorts this season will be high: now the dynamics of booking Sochi for the summer is 20-25% ahead of last year. Against this backdrop, Mantera also launched a tour operator, Mantera Travel, specializing in the Russian south and programs in Abkhazia.

Alexandra Mertsalova