The Alexandar Palace was built in 1998, and is today the most luxurious hotel in Macedonia. Before getting into more details, can you enlighten us on the reason that motivated such an investment in Macedonia?
The first motive was the money. However, regarding the fact that at the time as part of Yugoslavia, the main infrastructure was located in Belgrade, so in this region here, in Macedonia, there was not much infrastructure. There were no embassies, there were no foreign companies, trade or economic ones. That meant also no adequate roads, airport or the entire infrastructure going with it.
Does it mean that infrastructure and business projects really started from the end of the decade?
We were limited by the embargo that we had until 1995, so basically that process started in 1996. So, that's how we came up with the idea to build such a hotel; we had another hotel renovated that is now part of the chain of Holiday Inn; foreign investors came to the third hotel - hotel Continental.
Our hotel was built within 2 years and 3 months, which is a record time for building this kind of hotel. It was built in accordance with the highest world standards.
Apart from the involvement of domestic contractors, everything else is from abroad. We had some equipment from the Great Britain, Austria, Germany, Italy, and Slovenia and so on. There are also new technologies transferred from abroad. Therefore, our view is that from the technological aspect we comply with all international standards. First of all, I mean the security of the guests, their comfort and the communication facilities.
We have the Internet network already in the hotel, so from the point of view of the infrastructure we are O.K., we can meet their requirements.
What is the profile of the guests staying in your hotel, where are they coming from and what are they mainly here for?
95% are foreign guests. We can't tell where they actually come from, but we have guests from all the 5 continents, but the most common are the Europeans and Americans. No. 1 are the guests coming for business; the longest staying ones are those who already have some investments in Macedonia, and the third place is to the official delegations coming to Macedonia. Our hotel has hosted some of the most important players in the world, including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. We hosted the Summit of the Leaders of the South-East Europe in November 2000. Fortunately, the hotel was equipped for such important gatherings. We have a conference hall for 1500 persons, very functional because it can be divided into 3 parts. So, we can meet the highest standards in organizing happenings of such a level. That means the hotel does not comprise only the accommodation capacity, it is also the best conference centre in Macedonia.
We have a very serious approach towards the conference part of the business, however we are limited by the capacity of the conference hall and the accommodation. Since those meetings require a lot of space, we can meet the needs of such a happening of 500 persons if we want to provide maximum luxury and comfort. If we want to organize a bigger one we need to have more space (i.e. big world medicine congresses, scientists meetings, sport meetings etc. with a lot of participants, which can be very interesting business area for us and a direction for development) If Macedonia builds such infrastructure, we will become a very interesting destination for such meetings. So far, Macedonia is an undiscovered region.
What is your marketing policy to attract new guests or target new market segments?
The main marketing policy here is concentrated towards
the international organizations that have their
offices here in Skopje. Those are organizations
with headquarters in cities like Paris, Brussels,
and Geneve. This regards strictly the conference
organizing part of the business. |
However, in the above-mentioned centres we co-operate with our embassies abroad, then with our business subsidiaries and companies close to our field of business. We have some specific promotions and presentations in New York and Toronto. Macedonia has business councils everywhere in the main cities, and we work also with the purpose of promoting the hotel. We have also serious contacts with the main chains of hotels like Hyatt and Marriott.
Your rooms are obviously more occupied during conference periods. Can you tell us what has been the evolution of you occupancy rate over the recent years?
During the last 2 years we had about 50 % room occupancy, except during the 3 months period of the crisis in Kosovo, when due to the specific situation the hotel had a 100% occupancy. Bearing in mind that we are a new hotel of this kind in the region, we have accomplished a lot. From the business point of view, we see that Macedonia needed this kind of hotel. We have proved that we have a capacity, we have qualified staff, and we are equipped to run such a hotel. We also saw that this business can bring profit.
Experience shows that often small countries find it very difficult to find qualified people to work in them. How do you recruit and train them?
We use the services of international consulting companies of this branch. Still the personnel is consisted of only Macedonians, and the instructors are Do foreigners.
Macedonia experienced a change of the Government in '98. Do you work closely with this government?
We started to work when the new Government came 2 years ago. From the aspect of the work we do not know any other Government. We have been operating and collaborating with them right from the beginning. Actually, I think that is one of the points that attracts foreign investors in Macedonia. There is no foreign investor who has been to Macedonia that hasn't slept in our hotel. We absolutely have contributed to the international recognition of Macedonia. I think that whenever anybody came to the hotel, they felt like they were in Europe. We are close friends with all of them. We have exchanged experiences - these are people who have been in thousands hotels. Everybody is surprised that there is such a hotel on the Balkans and it operates well. A confirmation of that is most of them had a long stay in our hotel, even though they have other alternatives for accommodation. So, we are very proud.
The average length of the stay of a guest was 3-4 days during the first year, now it has come down to 1-2 days. Except the long-stay guests here for months, even years.
Besides the fact that foreign guests feel comfortable in your hotel, do you have the feeling that they feel comfortable in Macedonia, that they feel there are positive prospects for Macedonia?
Absolutely. First of all because Macedonia is one of the rare countries on the Balkans with economic certainty.
Also, life in Macedonia is very interesting, especially
the night-life which goes all night long. And there
are tourist destinations especially busy during
the week-ends. We organize tours for visiting these
places. We organize events that take place in the
countries our guests come from. Three years since
we're having the Marine's ball, exactly as they
celebrate it on their US bases, we have a ball similar
to the Vienna Ball, and we have Thanksgiving celebration,
not to mention Christmas and Easter. In Macedonia
we have so many foreigners, in fact from here we
followed the US presidential elections. In other
words this hotel represents the world in small. |
