Conference and banqueting services account for between 30% and 50% of the turnover generated by five-star hotels in Bucharest. Investments have been made in conference halls and ballrooms by hotel owners, in reaction to the lack of such investments on the part of the municipal authorities.
The event market in Bucharest is dominated by five-star hotels, as there are no facilities provided by the municipal authorities, and no indication of a private investor having plans to build a conference centre.
The contribution of the conference and banqueting segment and of the food & beverage (restaurants and catering operations) segment make to a hotel's turnover depends on the hotel's location, the number of conference and banqueting rooms available, and on how well equipped and organised the respective units are.
Mihai Rajnita, general secretary with the Federation of the Romanian Hotel Industry (FIHR), says that for this segment to be profitable, the hotel needs to have modular halls, with no pillars in the middle, which are located in a separate area, away from the hotels' regular customers.
In the case of the Intercontinental- which has six conference halls, the smallest number of conference halls on the market of five-star hotels, the conference and banqueting segment contributed to just a third of the 13 million-euro turnover the hotel posted in 2006. However, in the overall revenues recorded in 2006, the event segment witnessed an increase of 25% against 2005, according to representatives from the hotel.
JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel, Bucharest's largest hotel, owns a conference and banqueting area covering 2,000 square metres. Conference and banqueting services account for around 20% of the hotel's total revenues. In addition, the hotel owns 5 restaurants and bars, whose revenues, along with the banqueting operation revenues account