Money-Growing: Countdown to New Year’s Eve

In all fairness, it should be noted that few of Moscow’s hotels suffer from a shortage of guests. The average occupancy rate in a Moscow hotel never falls below 70-75% and goes as high as 95-100% during high season. An undisputable advantage of celebrating New Year’s Eve in a hotel is that carefree feeling of having nothing to organize.

Ladies do not have to think about what to cook and, most importantly, when to cook the festive meal. Hotel chefs will take care of that. Gentlemen do not have to be wary of running into a traffic police patrol in the early hours of the new year.

Children, brought along to the hotel for the New Year party are happy, too. Unlike their parents, masters of ceremonies, clowns and other artists are always ready to entertain the kids. Parents never seem to do that, even on holidays…

Hotel cooks are not the only ones who rack their brains over the scenario of a New Year party. Marketing department employees, too, are busy thinking up ways to attract guests to their hotel. An exquisite dinner and a well-thought out program are the keys to success.

New Year Style

A short analysis of the available New Year party packages has revealed that most hotels offer programs featuring an ethnic slant. The Katerina City hotel, for instance, plans an Arabian Nights style party on December 31, 2005.

Radisson-Slavyanskaya has reported that the most unforgettable New Year party ever held on its premises was the 2004 New Year Eve party that featured a theater performance entitled “The French New Year”, with Parisian scenes and other elements which made the guests feel as though they were in a virtual Paris.

Public relations manager with Renaissance-Moscow Gayane Sarkisyan says the hotel plans a Russian style New Year Party. “New Year on the Circus Ring” is the name of the variety entertainment program that will be offered to visitors. Children under six will be admitted to the party free of charge.

The hotel Ukraine, which recently transferred from the caring hands of city hall into the ownership of OOO Biskvit, is looking forward to New Year’s Eve with some optimism, too. The party guests will be invited to the Jazz Bar restaurant that can seat up to 500 people. The program features folk songs and dancing, an oriental style show entitled Dzhaga, the Expromt trio and a performance of actors from the Moscow Gypsy Romen Theater.

National Hotel plans a disco style party. Its organizers promise that while enjoying the view of a snow-clad Kremlin the guests will revel in the sounds of Russian and foreign disco hits in the unforgettable atmosphere of the good old 1980s. The star of the program will be the legendary group Ottawan, which had world famous hits with D.I.S.C.O and Hands Up, in the Moscow and St. Petersburg halls of the hotel. Svetlana Razina, the lead singer of the popular band Mirazh, will also perform at the party.

Incidentally, hotel managers differ in their opinion on whether the participation of pop stars is necessary.

“We have already had experience of working with stars,” Radisson’s representative has reported. “As a result we have decided against inviting variety performers. However, for several years now we have been inviting a very talented master of ceremonies. The guests are always enraptured with him.”

Another fashionable addition is interactive entertainment where the guests, instead of passively watching the performance, take an active part in it.

New Year party-goers are given the chance to see their most cherished dreams come true. They can learn a new dance, even if only a few moves; learn to sing in public, even if it’s only on karaoke, or get rich, even if only for a short while, by winning a prize in a lottery. Lotteries, by the way, are included in almost every New Year party program.

Gourmet Ordeal

A rich New Year’s Eve dinner is a token of prosperity. Devising a menu for New Year parties is no problem for hotels. It is the guests who face the problem of eating or at least tasting everything he is being treated to.

The Renaissance Moscow hotel will offer a buffet Grand Gala Circus, made up chiefly of French meals. Guests will be offered a variety of exquisite canap?s and champagne, a cold Parade Allez buffet featuring exotic foods such as pate fois grois served with truffles, asparagus and quail egg salads, oysters and crab cocktail, as well as pancakes with red and black caviar, traditional Russian pirozhkis, fresh baked bread and all kinds of salads. Hot appetizers include baked mushrooms and vol-au-vent pies with vanilla filling. The choice of main courses is no less extravagant: a salmon roll with champagne sauce, grilled quail with a green bean sauce, venison fillet with truffle sauce and goose liver, etc.

The chef at the National hotel plans a nice surprise for gourmets in the form of a luxurious festive dinner of 12 courses. Guests will be offered a chance to partake in such exotic meals as venison and elk roast beef with goose galantine with marjoram, prunes and walnuts; baked lamb with mint sauce, glazed chestnuts and Brussels sprouts; veal medallions with Madeira and champignons, baked zucchinis and dauphinois potatoes. Top of the range alcohol will be served in unrestricted quantities. It is believed that you can never actually get drunk on it…

Radisson-Slavyanskaya will serve dinner in three of its restaurants – the Talavera with Mediterranean cuisine, the Balanchine (Russian cuisine) and fusion cuisine in the restaurant By the Fountain. Talavera will treat guests to delicious Mediterranean appetizers and main courses, vodka and Soviet sparkling wine while Balanchine will offer a buffet of Russian appetizers, main courses and desserts.

The Hotel Ukraine will be as hospitable as ever. Guests will be offered a choice of 14 courses, cooked in accordance with the best recipes of Russian, Ukrainian and European cuisine. In the morning a special invigorating breakfast – the hotel’s “know-how” – will be served.

December Fall

While hotel halls and restaurants are widely used as venues for New Year parties, hotel room rates drop considerably. Many hotels offer considerable discounts on normal rates and special holiday packages with a late breakfast and late check-out. Some hotels sell New Year service packages.

The price of a ticket to a New Year party depends on the class of the hotel, but is on the whole affordable. Besides, hotel rooms are offered at considerable discount of 20-50% of usual rates. Tickets to the New Year party at the 3-star Alfa hotel (which is part of the Izmailovo hotel complex at 7 Izmailovskoye Shosse) are sold at 3,600 rubles. Special New Year rates of 2,000 to 2,100 rubles for a double bedroom are available. The regular charge is 2,900 rubles per night.

The price of a ticket to a party at Radisson-Slavyanskaya depends on the choice of a restaurant. Those who prefer Mediterranean cuisine at Talavera will have to pay 269 conventional currency units (where 1 c.c.u. equals 32 rubles), or 8,608 rubles. The guests of Balanchine and By the Fountain restaurants will be charged 229 c.c.u. or 7,328 rubles. A double room is 129 c.c.u. (4,128 rubles), while the regular rate is 299 c.c.u. (9,568 rubles).

The price of a ticket to the New Year performance at Katerina City is 6,500 rubles. Rooms are offered at considerable discounts – spending a night at the hotel will cost only 3,000 to 5,000 rubles depending on the room category, compared to 8,000 on other days.

A special offer of 99 c.c.u. or 2,970 rubles for a double room where up to three people can stay is available at Renaissance Moscow. The size of the currency unit is based on the dollar exchange rate. All the afore-mentioned rates do not include VAT and breakfast.

Tickets to the New Year party at National Hotel are sold from between 9,000 and 21,000 rubles. Guests are offered a 45% discount on all types of rooms. Thus, the cheapest double room usually offered at 390 c.c.u., or 12,480 rubles will cost 214.5 c.c.u., or 6,864 rubles on Dec. 31. The price includes late checkout on Jan. 1 (before 17:00), breakfast or brunch and a visit to the fitness center.

The Orlyonok hotel will hold parties at two of its restaurants, but the management still has not come up with a New Year room discount plan. Tickets to the New Year party at the La Buffet restaurant on the Casino de Paris balcony with free entry to the casino are on sale at 8,500 rubles (as of Nov. 26).

The Ukraine offers a 50% discount on its rooms for the night of December 31. A ticket to the Jazz Bar restaurant costs 7,000 rubles, or 5,000 rubles per person for groups of 10 guests and more. On usual days the Ukraine charges 4,650 rubles per night for a double room. Hotel guests will also be invited to take part in a variety of lotteries and contests. The most common prizes will be a bottle of elite champagne, a luxury food hamper or a dinner in one of the hotel’s restaurants for two.

Benefits of Hospitality

Do hotels benefit from hosting New Year parties? Of course, and not only on New Year’s Eve, but even up to two weeks before the actual night. All sorts of corporate parties where some of the guests continue to celebrate in hotel bars, or even stay for the night, are held in the city’s hotels until late December. Bookings for restaurants in the most popular hotels are made around the end of summer.

Alexander Lesnik, general director at Hotel Consulting and Development Group, says, that New Year parties keep hotel rooms filled and restaurants busy. Nadezhda Revyakina, head of sales and booking at Alfa, says that both Alfa restaurants, which can seat up to 150 guests each, will be completely full.

Natalia Vilyant, chief assistant to the head of GAO Moskva, on the contrary, believes that hotels do not profit from New Year parties because in most of them the restaurants actually belong to someone else. “The only advantage is an opportunity to increase their occupancy rates,” she says.

“I think, at any rate, the hotels do not incur losses,” the general director of Leeds Property Group, Yelena Florinskaya, concludes. “The New Year party, as such, pays back because many guests from out of town and foreign tourists arrive in Moscow to celebrate the New Year. Today, people are willing to pay for a New Year party away from home. And they do so.”