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> BIENVENUE DANS L'UNIVERS DE L'EXPERTISE HÔTELIÈRE > Sophos Hotels expands its activities in Russia

Sophos Hotels expands its activities in Russia

The days of Russian hotels that featured surprise cold showers, burned-out light bulbs and mysterious-smelling blankets are slowly passing into the realm of funny memories.

"Right at the end of the Soviet Union, everything was still Soviet standard. There was only one model bed that was approved for use in hotels for foreigners. If you're 6-foot-2 like I am, you're missing about 4 inches of bed," said Paul Goncharoff, an American businessman who has been working in Russia since 1976. "Unless I unscrewed the baseboard of the bed, I could never stretch out."

Today, business travelers no longer have to carry around screwdrivers, ready to take apart bed frames, as the unpredictable Soviet-era hotels of Russia's regions steadily lose market share to standardized chain hotels like Radisson SAS, Hilton and Park Inn.

Following the pattern, with some significant differences, Wyndham Hotel Group International will open its first Ramada hotel in Yekaterinburg in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Currently, "there are not a lot of branded hotels in Yekaterinburg," said Christian Michel, the regional vice president of development for Wyndham. "We want to position this as a business hotel just outside the city."

Ramada, along with Park Inn, the city's only other branded hotel, looks set to make the most of the Yekaterinburg's growth.

Yekaterinburg "has been put on the international map," said Yevgeny Bezel, the senior vice president in charge of investment sales at Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels.

Known since its founding as the country's third capital and the capital of the Urals, Yekaterinburg will soon expand its transportation infrastructure, with its airport probably becoming a major air hub in the Urals, Bezel said.

To take advantage of this, leading local construction firm Mayak will build the hotel on the Novokoltsovsky Trakt outside the center on the way to the airport.

Opening its doors in December, the hotel will also be able to capitalize on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's annual conference, which will be held in the city in the summer of 2009. A Hyatt and a Novotel are also under construction, Michel said.

The difference between other branded operations and the Ramada is that it, along with Sophos Hotels SA and Hilton, are "pushing the franchise scheme," Bezel said.