The co-owner of the tour operator “Alean” bought the Hilton Garden Inn Moscow New Riga hotel in Istra

The growth in profitability of country hotels in the Moscow region has interested investors. Co-owner of the tour operator Alean, Ilya Umansky, bought the Hilton Garden Inn Moscow New Riga hotel in Istra from Amtel Properties of the Sudhir Gupta family. The transaction amount could exceed 2 billion rubles. Consultants, however, believe that due to seasonality of demand, the average annual occupancy of hotels in the region is lower than in Moscow.

Co-owner of Alean, Ilya Umansky, became the owner of New Riga Resort LLC, which owns the Hilton Garden Inn Moscow New Riga hotel with a total area of ​​14.2 thousand square meters. m in Istra near Moscow, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Previously, the owner of the property was Amtel Properties. The Alean press service confirmed the conclusion of the deal, but did not disclose its amount. Amtel Properties CEO Daniel Gupta did not answer Kommersant’s questions. The head of other hotel projects at Amtel Properties, Alexander Timokhin, said that he does not have information about the deal.

Amtel opened the Hilton Garden Inn Moscow New Riga in Istra in 2012. Alean clarified that the facility is managed by Hilton Worldwide, and there are no plans to change the operator in the near future. Now the hotel belongs to the four-star category and has 162 rooms.

Managing partner of Ivashkevich Hospitality Stanislav Ivashkevich suggests that the market value of the property is 2–3 billion rubles. These investments can be repaid in an average of 12 years, he believes. A promising direction of development, according to the expert, would be the construction of a SPA center with an area of ​​1.5–2 thousand square meters on the territory of the hotel. m. The costs of such a project will reach 1 billion rubles, Mr. Ivashkevich calculated. But high demand for such services can ensure quick self-sufficiency: the infrastructure can be used not only by hotel guests, but also by residents of nearby villages.

The hotel in Istra is the first hotel project of Aleana in the Moscow region. The company is eyeing this area, they explained. The portfolio now includes five more properties under the Alean brand in the Krasnodar region. In 2021, the company also announced plans to build a complex in Crimea with 2 thousand rooms (see “Kommersant” dated May 25, 2021). Although Mr. Ivashkevich does not consider the acquisition of Hilton Garden Inn Moscow New Riga to be non-specific for Alean, noting that, as in the case of objects on the Black Sea coast, we are talking about a resort project.

Country hotels in the Moscow region are showing an increase in key indicators. Deputy director of the hospitality division of CORE.XP Dmitry Parinos says their average occupancy in 2023 was 53.9%, an increase of 8.1 percentage points year-on-year. The average tariff increased by 6.7%, to 11.4 thousand rubles. per night. Profitability per room reached 6.2 thousand rubles, an increase of 15.4% over the year. Mr. Parinos expects the positive trend to continue this year, although he assumes that the dynamics will be more restrained.

The domestic tourist flow has been growing since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, and the Moscow region has great potential due to its proximity to the metropolis, notes NF Group partner Olga Shirokova. At the same time, the expert recalls that the country holiday market is characterized by pronounced seasonality: high demand is observed in June-August and during the holidays, while on other dates it may be limited. The occupancy of hotels with recreational infrastructure in the high season, according to Ms. Shirokova, reaches 85–95%, while in the low season it can drop below 40–45%. As a result, in the highest quality properties the figure is 65% at the end of the year. For comparison: the average annual occupancy of hotels in Moscow, according to city hall estimates, last year was 76%.

Alexandra Mertsalova