First hotel on Stara Planina mountain opens for the New Year - Part of tourist complex in Jabucko Ravniste opens on first day of 2012

Construction of the first hotel on Stara Planina mountain, in the location of Jabucko Ravniste, is close to end, and the hotel is expected to receive the first guests for the New Year.

As Director of the public company Stara Planina Svetislav Popadic told Tanjug news agency, this investment is worth RSD 3.45 billion and the hotel will first have four stars, while later it may get the fifth star as well. The entire funds have been provided by the state of Serbia, which also invests in the infrastructure required by the future hotel complex.

Stara Planina hotel, spanning 26,000 square meters, will comprise 147 rooms and 454 beds. It will also include two restaurants, three conference rooms, a pizza place, an ethnic restaurant with homemade specialties on its menu, a wellness and spa center, and an indoor swimming pool.

Construction works on the hotel, which commenced last year, have been finished, and now the main focus is on the interior and exterior. Popadic added that a marketing campaign was expected to start in October, whereas the sale of the first winter arrangements should commence in the middle of that month.

The public company Stara Planina has hired the Vranje-based interior planning, engineering and furnishing company Simpoline and Belgrade-based Eurosalon to supply furniture and equipment for storage space, public rooms, offices, rooms for personnel, spa center and relaxation space within the hotel in Jabucko Ravniste. Agreements were signed in early August, and the company has set aside over RSD 100 million for that purpose.

Works on access roads are also underway so that the hotel furnishing and equipping could start in November. Reconstruction of the road from Kalna to Jabucko Ravniste, that is, the section between Balt Berilovac and Jamski bridge, is currently in progress, as part of the activities envisaged by the National Investment Plan.

The road is expected to be finished until mid-October, which will make it possible for passengers to get from the highway to the hotel, via Knjazevac, in an hour and a half.

As Popadic explained, the hotel is planned to be open during the whole year and to offer special service packages for each season - mountain cycling, skiing, walking, hiking, running, sightseeing, etc.

- We first count on attracting guests from Serbia, and then we plan to offer our services to the markets of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and some other markets in late 2012. We will create a joint offer with the Spanish company HG, with which we have signed a hotel management agreement, and it should market our offer through certain channels - said the director.

The entire investment is financed by the state. A total of 10 kilometers of ski runs are being created simultaneously, and there will also be the first gondola in Serbia, with the capacity of 2,400 tourists per hour, as well as a four-seat ski lift.

According to the director's words, the first three out of the initially planned nine hotels are merged into this first hotel that is almost finished, and land-utilization plans have already made for another six facilities, which are not classical hotels but condo-hotels (condotels).

A condotel is a building used as both a condominium and a hotel. These hotels have condominium units which allow someone to own a full-service vacation home. When they are not using this home, they can leverage the marketing and management done by the hotel chain to rent and manage the condo unit as it would any other hotel room.

Popadic also stated that they had already received a letter of intent for the construction of remaining facilities from the Spanish company Sol Melia and Bulgaria's Investment Fund, which should have three facilities built for its own needs.

The first hotels are planned to be organized as a mountain village, around which large hotels should be built by future investors.