HUNGARY: Budapest hotel hopes region's largest water park "Aquaworld" will help fight financial woes

Record ID: 784593

  • Title: HUNGARY: Budapest hotel hopes region's largest water park "Aquaworld" will help fight financial woes
  • Date: 18th December 2008
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 2nd January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: Industry,Travel / Tourism
  • Reuters ID: LVA8NDEYOI4VVA8JHHHEBAALV7W7
  • Story Text: Central Europe's biggest water park hotel in Budapest hopes the new venture will help it survive the recession facing the industry.
    A Hungarian hotel is hoping Central Europe's biggest indoor water park will help it fight the financial crisis.
    Aquaworld's watery amusements which are spread over 42,000 square metres, recently opened in the Hungarian capital Budapest. It features a 72 metre wide central dome stretching across 17 pools of different styles, with 11 water slides, some as high as 17 metres, a surfing pool, a replica of an Angkor temple, a labyrinth of interconnected suspension bridges, towers and rest areas, and a huge wave pool.

    "We have drawn our ideas from across the globe, everything we have seen around the world from the Far East to the U.S. and Europe. We have looked at the various developments and used the very best pearls of these in this project," director of Aquaworld, Katalin Piandler said.
    The dome itself is exceptional with its wooden support elements covered by a multi-layer foil system developed in space research providing anti-UV protection.
    Aquaworld also features a separate "Sauna World" with steam rooms, aroma treatments and a tepidarium -- an ancient Roman-style bathing area with underfloor heating.
    The total space of Aquaworld is 54,000 square metres, attached to the new Ramada hotel and the cost of the complex was 17 billion Hungarian forints (about 65 million euros).
    Aquaworld say that while the current global recession is causing them some difficulties in starting up the business, they are nevertheless hopeful it will be a success.

    "We hope that this whole complex is such a unique product that it will generate demand regardless, the magic of something new can help a lot.
    But of course the recession is causing difficulty for us in the start up," marketing manager Agnes Kelecsenyi said.
    The opening of Ramada's Aquaworld comes at a time when the Hungarian hotel industry is experiencing a slowdown due to the global financial crisis.
    Visitors and hotel occupancy has decreased in the past months, and turnover at Hungarian hotels has fallen by 10 percent in the past two months, according to the Hungarian Hotel Alliance.
    Hungary's leading Danubius Hotels sustained financial losses of 3.1 million euro in the third quarter of 2008, compared to financial losses of 1.9 million euro in the third quarter of 2007. The company attributes the increase in losses to the forint's depreciation against the euro.
    Danubius' CEO Imre Deak says he is rather pessimistic about the coming year in the hotel industry.

    "We can feel a quite a strong decrease which is mainly seen in our three month forecast, so the forecast is what is really bad. The present situation, well, these months have never been top ones, December is never a strong month in this industry. But the three month forecast paints a very gloomy picture of the future. I think before it will get better it will get much worse for us yet," Deak said.
    Owners of the new Ramada hotel and its Aquaworld park hope that the unique complex will be able to withstand the waves of recession and not slide with the rest of the industry.
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