Travel Notes

Weathering the storm

Moscow’s hotels are surviving, even prospering

D

espite the economic crisis, Moscow’s ho-tel and tourism bu-si-ness seems to be surviving and perhaps even thriving: only 3% of hotel workers have been laid off and the hotel occupancy rate in-creased from 54.3% in 1997 to 55.1% in 1998. Total revenues in the same period increased by R1.3 billion, to R3.5 billion. 

Several new hotels have also recently opened in the capital: Derzhavnaya (89 rooms, 2 stars), Katerina (30 rooms, more to come, 3 stars),  Holiday Inn Vino-gra-d-ovo (154, four stars), Au-ro-ra-Marriott (228 rooms, five stars) and the Golden Ring-Swiss-Diamond (240 rooms, five stars). 

The new Golden Ring-Swiss Diamond hotel, formerly known as the Belgrad-1, is located directly across from the Arbat and the Russian Foreign Ministry. Run jointly by the Pre-si-dential Business Admin-i-stra-tion Directorate and the Swiss Mabetext Group, it be-came fully operational in late January. The five-star hotel includes all the top amenities and hosts three restaurants, including the Panorama res-tau-rant on the top floor, with one of the best views of Moscow. 

Today, Moscow counts 179 hotels with 28,000 employees (10 of the hotels have some foreign ownership, 18 are owned by the city and 45 by joint stock companies). Ho-tels with foreign capital have the highest occupancy rate: 57.4 %. There are some 37,811 hotel rooms in the capital. After the August crisis, ruble prices for accommodations increased by 110-120%, but dollar prices stayed stable or went down. Business travelers continue to make up the largest group of foreign travelers. 

The Moscow City Govern-ment has set itself a goal of increasing annual tourism to the capital to 5 million persons by the year 2002, to which end it recently opened a Moscow Tourist Office in the US, in Parsippany, NJ (ph. 973-428-4709).

Russia’s State Duma has passed a law that would require, if approved by the Federation Coun-cil and Pre-si-dent Yeltsin, that anyone crossing Russia’s border pay a fee equal to 80% of the minimum monthly wage, or about $3. 

Meanwhile, tourists to Russia may soon be required to take out medical insurance before they are issued a visa. The Russian Health Ministry is drafting regulations to this effect, to apply to all visitors coming to Russia for less than six months. The law only ap-plies to citizens of countries that make similar requirements on Russian tourists. The US does not. Germany, France and Canada do.

Starting this year, a new express train, the Tverskoy, will operate on the Moscow-St. Peters-burg corridor, replacing the Avrora express, which has been working the line since 1965. The new cars, to be fully in place by 2000, will be more comfortable, less noisy and able to sustain speeds of up to 200 km per hour.

On other routes, the Russian Ministry of Railways is testing “flexible ticket rates.” In practice, this means a lowering of rail prices on less traveled routes, to increase demand. On the first pilot route, between Moscow and Kaliningrad, ridership rates have stabilized since the introduction of the flexible rates. 

One year ago, Moscow was ranked the world’s third most expensive city for travelers by the Economist Intelligence Unit. This year Moscow dropped to 88th place, showing up the magnitude of the present crisis and/or methodological errors in compiling the list. Tokyo still holds #1 rank. St. Petersburg dropped from 83rd place to 115th, making it the least expensive destination in Europe (a title held last year by Budapest).

MOSCOW’s Bolshoi Theater is planning a world tour to run from April to August 1999. The tour includes stops in Brazil, China,  the US, Japan and Great Britain. For more information visit the Bolshoi’s website: www.bolshoi.ru