Mona to open Garni hotel in Belgrade in February 2014 – Location in Dorcol ready for construction of bigger facility (PHOTO)

Early next year, the Mona hotel management will open its first hotel in Belgrade. The three-star Garni hotel Argo will receive guests in the city center, at the corner of Resavska Street and Kralja Milana Street, diagonally from the Beogradjanka building.

The reconstruction of the business premises owned by Agroexport, occupying 600m2 started three months ago and as Ivan Vitorovic, Marketing and Sales Development Manager said for eKapija, Argo will host its first guests in the second half of 2014.

Although the building where Argo will be placed will have six floors, the hotel will have three.

It will have 20 rooms – double rooms with separated king-size bed, a small banquet hall and a hall for dining and the hotel will serve breakfast exclusively.

- As the researches show, Belgrade at this moment lacks small city hotels up to three stars at attractive locations – Vitorovic says.

- We are expecting guests from abroad who want excellent location and good service at convenient prices, people who, during their travels, do not stay long at their rooms so bed and breakfast accommodation is an ideal option for them. This kind of concept, apart from that, suits to people who come to Belgrade for work and who, in most of the cases, have organized lunches and dinners.

In Mona, they are already recruiting future staff for Argo. They need a receptionist, a room-maid, a manager and a cook who will also be a cook. As Vitorovic said, there will be 8-10 hotel workers for a start.

In turn current offices into modern hotel rooms, some EUR 600.000 will be invested.

The shareholder company will manage the hotel, 70% owned by the Mona hotel management and the remaining part will belong to small shareholders.

New accommodation facilities in the pipeline

As eKapija, in the near future, Mona hotel management is planning to open another hotel in downtown Belgrede.

- The plan is to open a bigger hotel with a capacity of up to 150 rooms. We have a location in Dorcol, but we are still considering whether it will be a greenfield or a brownfield investment – Vitorovic said.

- The start will mostly depend on economic trends in the country and the region but we are speaking about an investment which will be on hold for at least another three years.

Let us remind that Belgrade-based Mona Hotel Management is a subsidiary of Mona d.o.o. set up to manage hotel capacities, both in the country and abroad. For now, MHM is managing Zlatibor-based Mona hotel, Javor Hotel in Kusicic, and the Bella villa in Budva.

I.B.