Establishing inns in the East

The company plans to establish a new Ibis hotel in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, and two hotels (an Ibis and a Novotel) in the Latvian capital of Riga. The Tallinn hotel and one of the Riga facilities will be built from scratch, while the second Riga development will be located in an already existing building.

Jean-Phillipe Savoye, the president and CEO of Orbis, announced that in addition to the Baltic openings, the company plans to begin operations in Ukraine, a development which also has a sentimental meaning for Orbis.

"Orbis, which has an over 80-year history, was established in Lviv, and that's why we would like to open hotels over there," Savoye said. The Orbis CEO said that the company wants to operate on the market with a local partner, but such a company has not been found yet.

According to Orbis' plan, the company's portfolio should include 80 hotels by 2010.

The expansion strategy comes on the heels of a positive nine months for the company. The Orbis Hotel Group, which along with Ibis and Novotel includes brands such as Sofitel, Mercure, Orbis Hotel and Etap, netted a 53.1-percent occupancy rate from Q1 to Q3, with an average price per room of zł.207.30.

The Orbis Hotel Group accounts for 80 percent of the shares of the Orbis Capital Group, which for the first nine months of 2006, recorded a 5.5-percent increase in its consolidated revenue as well as EBITDA growth of 11.1 percent.

With the bumper results of the three quarters of 2006, Orbis predicts its EBITDA for the whole year will reach zł.191 million.