Corinthia Hotels is to open a 101-executive room extension at its Nevskij Palace Hotel in St Petersburg, along with full refurbishments to all 250 existing rooms and public areas, in particular the lobby, towards the end of this year.
”The potential for St Petersburg, in the UK market alone, is huge,” Corinthia UK regional sales director conference & incentive, Simon Burleigh, told ABTN. ”It is a really up and coming city and none of the other five-star hotels offer large facilities for the MICE [meetings incentives conference and events] market.
”These latest developments at the hotel, which include a new grand ballroom and extra breakout rooms, as well as 101 additional executive guestrooms, should make it the biggest hotel for conferences in the city.”
Improvements to the existing guestrooms include installation of wi-fi access and interactive TV, as well as an integrated PMS (property management system) and express check-in.
To cater for the MICE market, Corinthia now has a dedicated web channel for event organisers, entitled Events@Corinthia. ”Competition in this area is fierce,” said Burleigh, ”and it is important to set yourself apart from the rest, as these are big deals that have the potential to meet a hotel”s sales target in one hit.
”At Corinthia we focus on establishing relationships with the event agencies rather than the end users and do everything in our power to make their life easier, with a guaranteed 24-hour response to RFPs [request for proposal], an automatic room upgrade for the organiser and their own mobile phone for use on site.
”We”ll even key in all the numbers they”ll need while on location at the hotel and run a bath that”s ready for them when they arrive.”