The first Holiday Inn hotel in Bulgaria will be opened in Sofia by September 2005, Moez Janmohamed, owner of the British chain Meridian Leisure Hotels told The Echo.
Meridian, a multiple franchisee of the Holiday Inn brand, will build the hotel in the area of Business Park Sofia. The construction company that will be the main contractor on this project will be chosen by the end of this month, Janmohamed said.
Meridian also plans to build another Holiday Inn in Sofia, as part of its programme of launching five hotels of this brand in Eastern Europe. The company is not interested in building hotels on the Black Sea due to the uncontrolled development there. Meridian Hotels might build hotels in Belgrade and Bucharest and intends to manage them from its Sofia headquarters.
Janmohamed, who came to Bulgaria approximately 15 months ago, considers it destiny. “The challenge for me in building in the United Kingdom was at a stage when I knew I could do it quite easily, and I have always been challenged by new opportunities in terms of the idea of design in particular – both architectural and interior,” he said. Over the last three years, he was looking for opportunities to explore Eastern Europe and he saw certain countries as desirable destinations.
>From all the countries in the region, Janmohamed quickly dashed out states that are mature markets, like Hungary or the Czech Republic, where he did not want to lag behind the other entrepreneurs. As a result, he decided to pick Romania and Bulgaria. Although very close to the development in Bucharest, Sofia became his priority due to the very positive view he developed about Bulgaria.
“I think that what convinced me more than anything is that for me to do something in a certain place I have to feel happy about it,” Janmohamed said and added that he very much enjoys working and dealing with Bulgarians. So he decided to develop a hotel here in Sofia.
“Yes, the investment side is important, the business angle is important. But, I am at a stage when money has become less relevant and what is more important is the opportunity of doing something that is challenging, and in an environment that also gives you all the other value added in terms of your life,” Janomhamed said.
After solving the puzzle of which country he should pick first, the owner of Meridian Leisure Hotels was faced with another challenge: what segment of the market in Sofia to target? And providing the answer to this question was not an easy task, especially in the light of the hotel construction boom in Sofia and the strong representation of other international brands, like Sheraton, Kempinski, Hilton and Radisson.
“While I knew that Bulgaria is a compact economy, with a compact population, I was sure that the opportunities in fact will be limited to the numbers of the possible entrants in each segment,” Janmohamed said and added that no hotel owner can exactly have multiple entries here in each segment, whether you look in the tourism sector or hotels in particular. He considers that the market does not have to accommodate more than 10 brands.
In terms of finding the proper location, the natural gravitation was to first look in downtown Sofia. He started the search through Colliers and looked at lots of sites, but finally managed to find two or three could work. However, since his focus fell largely on the corporate commercial market, Janmohamed was attracted by the idea of Colliers to look to Business Park Sofia, built by Lindner.
He considers dealing with Lindner as the proper move and another manifestation of the fact that very often business relations are guided by the way you feel about the party that you are do business with. Rossen Plevneliev, the head of Lindner Bulgaria also met the idea with enthusiasm and took the time to go to the UK to meet with Meridian executives. After some negotiations, the final decision was made and the choice of the location in Sofia became reality.
In July last year, the deal for the land was completed. It has taken Meridian almost 12 months to set things right after that because they are a cautious organisation. “I do not really like taking chances and we wanted to do everything very properly, professionally by the book, Janmohamed said and pointed to the very interesting professionals they have put on their project team.
He wanted to find an international company that has Bulgarian experience. So, they contacted the firm that has been involved with airports and several other projects in Bulgaria. The British based company Vector, which has been operating in Bulgaria for over 10 years now, became Meridien’s partner, due to the combination of its British base and Bulgarian experience.
Janmohamed also found a good local architectural firm. LP Consult was selected, and its owner Atanas Panov is one of a few modern designers in Bulgaria. After looking some more, currently Meridian has three architectural practices on the team. The interior design is in the hands of a company based in Scotland. The supervising architect is also based in Scotland and has a lot of Holiday Inn experience. The Bulgarian architect is leading the way on the design. They also have a Bulgarian independent construction supervising team, as well as special mechanical and electric consultants both from Britain and Bulgaria.
In order to compete with other international brands in Sofia, Meridian has chosen a value led strategy. The will offer lower prices, but price as a pure strategy on its own is self defeating, according to Janmohamed. First and foremost, he intends to create design excellence – a very well architecturally designed hotel and something great in terms of interior design, as he put it. Holiday Inn Sofia will be the freshest hotel of this world wide chain, with an extremely modern and very contemporary design.
What Janmohamed singled out as his winning strategy is “to create as many fire exits as possible,” in other words to give it multiple lives. “All right, we are in Mladost. How are we going to bring the business people to this hotel? So, we decided – let’s create large leisure, which will actually mean that the leisure facility will be attaching the hotel and not vice versa,” Janmohamed said.
He intends to create one of the best leisure clubs in all of Sofia – large, with extended swimming pool, large gym, saunas, jacuzzis, steam rooms, and the inevitable spa element. This will be their difference from the competition.
Holiday Inn will have an all-day brassiere, similar to the Four Seasons restaurant of Hilton, and a fine dining restaurant, which will have a particular concept that is not yet finalised.
Meridian Hotels Bulgaria will also create the most modern conference facilities, better than any other hotel in Sofia. It is modelled on one of the best concepts in the world, called the Academy. It is used in Britain, in the newest Holiday Inn hotels and provides many additional facilities to people that are taking part in conferences. It will have the capacity to seat over 250 people in the main room.
So leisure, conference capabilities, and food and beverages are three of the “fire exits”. Another will be a real feature bar. This will not be a residence bar, but a destination bar for people with a bit of money, who want to be in a trendy place, with lovely interiors and interesting lighting – a very design led place.
As an attachment to the multiple fire exits strategy, the hotel will have only about 130 rooms.
Janmohamed believes that Holiday Inn brand power is enormous. They have a phenomenal reach in the world and are the most global hotel brand in the world.
In terms of the future plans, Janmohamed is not interested in building on the Black Sea. “First, I am not a resort operator. And second, what worries me about the Black Sea is that we want to be in environments, which are better controlled in terms of planning,” he said. From a distance, he is getting the feeling that there is currently uncontrolled development on the Black Sea. He thinks that the quality is variable, some of it is questionable, and some of it is good but very variable; and competition is very serious.
Therefore, he is looking possibly at Sofia again, although Plovdiv is a possibility too. The plan is to have a different level of product – for business travellers that have a limited budget but still want a quality branded product.
“If we do anything in Bucharest and Belgrade soon, we want to manage it from Bulgaria,” Janmohamed said. And in searching for a management team, he was very optimistic. Only a week after they advertised the General Manager’s position, the recruitment ad attracted 210 applications. Most of the candidates were foreigners, although some are returning Bulgarians.
Janmohamed is seriously looking for Bulgarians, who have been part of the Holiday Inn business somewhere in the world. Furthermore, he is one of the few, who believe that Bulgarians are starting to return to their country, obviously seeing the opportunities here. “When I was in Romania, the people there were asking me if I could find them jobs in the UK, and here everyone is asking me if I could find him a job in Bulgaria,” Janmohamed said and assessed this as a very positive sign for the future of Bulgaria.
Meridian, a multiple franchisee of the Holiday Inn brand, will build the hotel in the area of Business Park Sofia. The construction company that will be the main contractor on this project will be chosen by the end of this month, Janmohamed said.
Meridian also plans to build another Holiday Inn in Sofia, as part of its programme of launching five hotels of this brand in Eastern Europe. The company is not interested in building hotels on the Black Sea due to the uncontrolled development there. Meridian Hotels might build hotels in Belgrade and Bucharest and intends to manage them from its Sofia headquarters.
Janmohamed, who came to Bulgaria approximately 15 months ago, considers it destiny. “The challenge for me in building in the United Kingdom was at a stage when I knew I could do it quite easily, and I have always been challenged by new opportunities in terms of the idea of design in particular – both architectural and interior,” he said. Over the last three years, he was looking for opportunities to explore Eastern Europe and he saw certain countries as desirable destinations.
>From all the countries in the region, Janmohamed quickly dashed out states that are mature markets, like Hungary or the Czech Republic, where he did not want to lag behind the other entrepreneurs. As a result, he decided to pick Romania and Bulgaria. Although very close to the development in Bucharest, Sofia became his priority due to the very positive view he developed about Bulgaria.
“I think that what convinced me more than anything is that for me to do something in a certain place I have to feel happy about it,” Janmohamed said and added that he very much enjoys working and dealing with Bulgarians. So he decided to develop a hotel here in Sofia.
“Yes, the investment side is important, the business angle is important. But, I am at a stage when money has become less relevant and what is more important is the opportunity of doing something that is challenging, and in an environment that also gives you all the other value added in terms of your life,” Janomhamed said.
After solving the puzzle of which country he should pick first, the owner of Meridian Leisure Hotels was faced with another challenge: what segment of the market in Sofia to target? And providing the answer to this question was not an easy task, especially in the light of the hotel construction boom in Sofia and the strong representation of other international brands, like Sheraton, Kempinski, Hilton and Radisson.
“While I knew that Bulgaria is a compact economy, with a compact population, I was sure that the opportunities in fact will be limited to the numbers of the possible entrants in each segment,” Janmohamed said and added that no hotel owner can exactly have multiple entries here in each segment, whether you look in the tourism sector or hotels in particular. He considers that the market does not have to accommodate more than 10 brands.
In terms of finding the proper location, the natural gravitation was to first look in downtown Sofia. He started the search through Colliers and looked at lots of sites, but finally managed to find two or three could work. However, since his focus fell largely on the corporate commercial market, Janmohamed was attracted by the idea of Colliers to look to Business Park Sofia, built by Lindner.
He considers dealing with Lindner as the proper move and another manifestation of the fact that very often business relations are guided by the way you feel about the party that you are do business with. Rossen Plevneliev, the head of Lindner Bulgaria also met the idea with enthusiasm and took the time to go to the UK to meet with Meridian executives. After some negotiations, the final decision was made and the choice of the location in Sofia became reality.
In July last year, the deal for the land was completed. It has taken Meridian almost 12 months to set things right after that because they are a cautious organisation. “I do not really like taking chances and we wanted to do everything very properly, professionally by the book, Janmohamed said and pointed to the very interesting professionals they have put on their project team.
He wanted to find an international company that has Bulgarian experience. So, they contacted the firm that has been involved with airports and several other projects in Bulgaria. The British based company Vector, which has been operating in Bulgaria for over 10 years now, became Meridien’s partner, due to the combination of its British base and Bulgarian experience.
Janmohamed also found a good local architectural firm. LP Consult was selected, and its owner Atanas Panov is one of a few modern designers in Bulgaria. After looking some more, currently Meridian has three architectural practices on the team. The interior design is in the hands of a company based in Scotland. The supervising architect is also based in Scotland and has a lot of Holiday Inn experience. The Bulgarian architect is leading the way on the design. They also have a Bulgarian independent construction supervising team, as well as special mechanical and electric consultants both from Britain and Bulgaria.
In order to compete with other international brands in Sofia, Meridian has chosen a value led strategy. The will offer lower prices, but price as a pure strategy on its own is self defeating, according to Janmohamed. First and foremost, he intends to create design excellence – a very well architecturally designed hotel and something great in terms of interior design, as he put it. Holiday Inn Sofia will be the freshest hotel of this world wide chain, with an extremely modern and very contemporary design.
What Janmohamed singled out as his winning strategy is “to create as many fire exits as possible,” in other words to give it multiple lives. “All right, we are in Mladost. How are we going to bring the business people to this hotel? So, we decided – let’s create large leisure, which will actually mean that the leisure facility will be attaching the hotel and not vice versa,” Janmohamed said.
He intends to create one of the best leisure clubs in all of Sofia – large, with extended swimming pool, large gym, saunas, jacuzzis, steam rooms, and the inevitable spa element. This will be their difference from the competition.
Holiday Inn will have an all-day brassiere, similar to the Four Seasons restaurant of Hilton, and a fine dining restaurant, which will have a particular concept that is not yet finalised.
Meridian Hotels Bulgaria will also create the most modern conference facilities, better than any other hotel in Sofia. It is modelled on one of the best concepts in the world, called the Academy. It is used in Britain, in the newest Holiday Inn hotels and provides many additional facilities to people that are taking part in conferences. It will have the capacity to seat over 250 people in the main room.
So leisure, conference capabilities, and food and beverages are three of the “fire exits”. Another will be a real feature bar. This will not be a residence bar, but a destination bar for people with a bit of money, who want to be in a trendy place, with lovely interiors and interesting lighting – a very design led place.
As an attachment to the multiple fire exits strategy, the hotel will have only about 130 rooms.
Janmohamed believes that Holiday Inn brand power is enormous. They have a phenomenal reach in the world and are the most global hotel brand in the world.
In terms of the future plans, Janmohamed is not interested in building on the Black Sea. “First, I am not a resort operator. And second, what worries me about the Black Sea is that we want to be in environments, which are better controlled in terms of planning,” he said. From a distance, he is getting the feeling that there is currently uncontrolled development on the Black Sea. He thinks that the quality is variable, some of it is questionable, and some of it is good but very variable; and competition is very serious.
Therefore, he is looking possibly at Sofia again, although Plovdiv is a possibility too. The plan is to have a different level of product – for business travellers that have a limited budget but still want a quality branded product.
“If we do anything in Bucharest and Belgrade soon, we want to manage it from Bulgaria,” Janmohamed said. And in searching for a management team, he was very optimistic. Only a week after they advertised the General Manager’s position, the recruitment ad attracted 210 applications. Most of the candidates were foreigners, although some are returning Bulgarians.
Janmohamed is seriously looking for Bulgarians, who have been part of the Holiday Inn business somewhere in the world. Furthermore, he is one of the few, who believe that Bulgarians are starting to return to their country, obviously seeing the opportunities here. “When I was in Romania, the people there were asking me if I could find them jobs in the UK, and here everyone is asking me if I could find him a job in Bulgaria,” Janmohamed said and assessed this as a very positive sign for the future of Bulgaria.
