Siberian hospitality

Eurasia Business Hotel is located in the heart of the historical and business part of Tyumen. It took the hotel only four years not only to become popular, but also to gain recognition of hospitality professionals: in 2012 the hotel was awarded with the international «Travel Industry Leader» award even in two categories — «For dynamic development» and «For service quality». Not stopping there, hotel management continues its search for new marketing strategies and ways of development. Recently «Eurasia» has officially confirmed its status of a business hotel, having passed ABT`s Business Hotel Attestation program«. Svetlana Ratsa, Head of Eurasia Business Hotel, tells us about the present and the future of the hotel and the hospitality industry in Tyumen.

— Svetlana, «Eurasia» is located in the center of Tyumen. We understand what occupancy rates of hotels in Moscow and St. Petersburg depend on. On the one hand, these cities are major financial centers, where tourists come for business meetings with partners and participate in various conferences, forums, exhibitions. On the other hand, thanks to their rich cultural and historical heritage, they attract a large number of tourist groups and individual travellers. And what about Tyumen? Who visits your city and your region?

— Tyumen is a major administrative center, the oldest city in Siberia and the capital of one of the largest regions in Russia, including two autonomous districts — Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets. And, of course, it is the heart of oil and gas industry of our country. Therefore, about 60% of visitors are business travellers. The number of business travellers in Eurasia Business Hotel amounts to 90% of all guests. According to our own survey, more than a half of them belong to the fuel and energy sector. There are also many employees from trade, insurance and pharmaceutical companies — about 24% of our guests. Less represented are banks, financial corporations and the car industry.

Unfortunately, few tourists come to Tyumen, despite the fact that it is one of the most beautiful cities in the region. There are many historical places here, primarily related to the tsar family. Next year we will celebrate the 400th birthday of the Romanov dynasty, and our hotel is also preparing for the event — we are planning a special program for our guests. I hope that one day the beauty of Tyumen will be appreciated not only by foreigners.

— Where are your guests from? How do you train staff to meet foreign tourists? Is there any difference between requirements of foreign and Russian tourists?

— Of course, the leader is Moscow — 26% of our guests are from the capital. A lot of people come to us from nearby cities — Ekaterinburg, Khanty-Mansiysk and Surgut. About 12% are foreigners: business travellers from Germany, France, the UK, and the USA. We have been facing an increase in the flow of visitors from Asian countries, mainly from China lately.

The main requirement to our staff is the knowledge of foreign languages. Since the opening of «Eurasia» we regularly conduct English courses for the staff — they have to be attended by all the employees who communicate with guests. Here everything is like in real school: the teacher gives marks and we control this process and keep track of our students` progress.

I would not compare Russian and foreign guests, the Russian audience is already quite advanced. But Asian tourists are very specific, and in a good way. They are more organized, if they have some event — you can be sure that all goes well and without any problems. Their demands are always clear, and it is comfortable to work with them. We have one Asian restaurant: if a delegation arrives, there are no free seats.

— Are you satisfied with the occupancy rate in your hotel? What do you do to increase it?

— Occupancy rate is growing, and this year there is even a slight excess of planned indicators of growth. Of course, the high seasons are spring and autumn, which is associated with business activities of our corporate clients. In summer many training and educational programs are held. The first two weeks of August are not in demand, although from Tuesday to Thursday there are no rooms available, but weekends are not so popular, that’s why we pay attention to attracting visitors for these dates. Nowadays we can hear more and more often, that traditional cooperation with agencies goes by the wayside because of new sales ways. Of course, we also keep busy and look for new marketing ways. Certainly, online sales have made great progress lately: when we started in 2009, Internet accounted for only 7% of bookings, today it makes 44%, that is for three years the situation has changed dramatically. Our hotel has a website, we are present in many booking systems and social networks — TripAdvisor, Facebook, and Vkontakte. We always try to promote ourselves, communicate actively, follow our guests’ opinion. However, our own analysis has shown that non-agency bookings account only for 10% of orders today, so we still work actively with agencies. We don’t forget that our main clients are business travellers; they rarely take decisions when choosing a hotel. As a rule, the decision is made by a travel department of their company, which in its turn uses services of agencies. It is important for people to receive package services. Of course, this work is to be done by professionals who know the subject and the specifics of requests.

— Please, describe your typical guest. Who are business travellers of Tyumen? What special services can you offer them? Can we talk about demand trends that have been turned into innovations for the past few years?

— The average age of «Eurasia» guests is 30-50 years. These people are very active, especially regarding the use of informational resources. It is where our needs come from. The general trend is that people come with their own gadgets. That is, if we offered to hire laptops earlier, now no one needs them anymore. But there is a new task: to provide good work of these devices which have different platforms. We take it into account when we install networks or mobile applications. In recent years requirements to meeting rooms have changed. Earlier the demand was only for rooms and air-conditioning. Now video conference is in demand — this way of communication is used by many of our guests. Foreigners often hold events at our hotel, that’s why we cooperate with interpreters. And I am not talking about such basic business travel requirements, as meeting rooms, transfer arrangement or visa support. If you declare it — you must do it. Of course, some costs are inevitable, but they always pay off and are welcome by the guests.

I would like to add that our guests tend to choose a healthy lifestyle, that’s why our SPA complex and fitness facilities are very popular. We can see that people don’t want to sit in the room after their working day, so we try to meet their requirements. For example, the Eurasia SPA center offers special relaxation programs for after-flight adaptation or stimulating programs to get ready for negotiations.

The guests who stay with us for a long time, like our events at weekends. For example, Eurasia’s Sunday brunches have gained very warm reviews. They are usually thematic: dedicated to holidays or certain cuisines. In restaurants master classes are held, where guests can try their hand at cooking. Initially, all of these programs were created for city residents to increase occupancy rate at weekends, but we noticed that our guests took active part in the activities. It is not always comfortable to go out of the hotel to a strange city, especially for a foreigner. We take account of these needs of business travellers and offer specific activities in the hotel.

— Do you have any statistics on your return clients? Is there a loyalty program in Eurasia?

— Yes, such statistics exists in two versions — corporate and individual. About 12% of the guests are people who have stayed with us three times or more. We care about them very much, always try to establish a personal contact, to communicate with them. It is good to hear advice and even criticism from these people — they help us improve. I can give you a specific example. We noticed that one of the guests stayed with us regularly, so our quality manager called him and offered to have a talk. It turned out that the man liked everything about our hotel, except for ... a too sophisticated mixer tap. However, we understood that there was a manual in each room! It was obvious that it was not in its proper place. We printed it and pasted it directly on the tile in the bathroom, so it could be in front of his eyes. Just a few months later we received a letter in which our frequent guest said that finally he had understood everything and thanked us for our prompt response and attention to his problem. We try to listen to everyone.

— Why did you decide to pass attestation of the Russian Association of Business Travel? Did Eurasia need additional preparation?

— Our main guests are business travellers, that is why we were interested in ABT`s attestation program. The certificate made us confident in the fact that we meet requirements of our target audience. We didn’t need additional preparation. But recommendations of the auditor who visited us as a secret guest after attestation were valuable. Based on the expert’s comments we added irons and ironing boards to the rooms and increased the number of chargers and adapters for our guests.

We count on ABT`s attestation program very much. It is difficult for an independent hotel to promote itself, to compete with hotel chains in terms of their extensive presence in the market. Now in Tyumen there is only one chain hotel — Best Western, but we understand that the situation may change in the future. That is why the ABT sign that distinguishes us in booking systems, the Association’s informational support are very important for us.

— Does Eurasia have any other certificates?

— Yes, when we opened the hotel, we passed state classification and received an official status of a four star hotel. And then it was decided to pass the «Green Key» ecological certification as well. Of course, there were doubts. There were skeptics who asked: «Why are you doing this? What do a business hotel and an eco-friendly hotel have in common? Do business travellers need all this?» But in practice, it turned out that these things were overlapping. Especially the «green key» icon is in demand with foreigners — visitors from Germany, Finland; it is a very important factor for them when choosing a hotel.

In accordance with the standards of eco-friendly hotel, our chef chooses suppliers of quality products, visits local farmers and inspects their farms, checks whether animals are fed with natural food. There is also a technical component of eco-certification, which relates to the use of energy saving lamps and water dissipaters. Some actions directly depend on the guests and are their choice. An average stay in our hotel is 1.4-1.7 days, but according to standards of 4-star hotel we have to change bed linen every day, and that means very high costs of washing, which affects the environment inevitably. Therefore, there is a plate in each room that the guest can put on the bed, thus making it clear that he is willing to spend one more night without a change of bed linen. On the one hand, guests can feel their importance — they have taken active part in the environmental protection. On the other hand, we are reducing water and electricity costs.

— Eurasia regularly holds social events and programs. Could you please tell us about them in detail?

— Social programs of targeted aid are our long-standing tradition that grew out of personal relationship. Dealing with charity, I met Galina Sushinsky, executive director of the Russian Children’s Fund in the Tyumen region. She personally meets families and gets to know their problems. I thought it would be good to tell other people about it. During the two years of our charity marathon «These children» 42 companies took part in it. It takes place late in May and is dedicated to the Children’s Day. The task of the hotel is to provide the place and services. We gather our partners — both customers and suppliers — and tell them about targeted aid programs and they choose who to help. Thus, the hotel serves as a bridge between those who need help and those who can offer it.

Another interesting event takes place in «Eurasia» before the New Year. We collect wish letters of children from problem and needy families and put them right in front of our restaurants. Any person can join the good work and I must say, our guests are actively doing this! Someone takes the letter and then buys a gift or gives money, others take the letter with them, leave, and then we receive a parcel. It is so important to feel, that you can help people who have problems in some way.

— Please, tell us a little about projects that are not implemented yet.

— We hope that the Tyumen hotel market will continue to develop. Plans to build a modern exhibition center in our city will contribute to it.

Again, it is very sad, that our region, with its rich historical heritage and beautiful nature is almost unknown in the tourist market. For example, there are many unique mineral springs in the suburbs of Tyumen that are not used properly. Therefore, we as a holding, have an idea of building a country hotel — this project will be focused on the locals primarily, but we will also invite visitors from all over Russia for recreation. We never stop looking for «highlights», some great things that we can offer our guests — it applies both to our hotel and to our region as a whole.

Svetlana Denikina