VIH enters Belarus
An Austrian hotel management company has been assigned to establish a hotel in what will be the biggest building in Minsk.Vienna International (VIH) said today (Tues) the plan was to open the four-star business hotel in the capital of Belarus in 2014.The hotel, which will feature 280 rooms, will be located in the Minsk Tower. Austrian construction company Habau Hoch- und Tiefbaugesellschaft m.b.H. (Habau) said last week it won a tender to build the 170-metre high complex.VIH announced that the new hotel will feature 2,900 square metres of conference rooms and a 2,000-square metre spa.VIH CEO Rudolf Tucek said: “Minsk has become more and more important regarding economic issues in the past few years. The whole country is showing stable economic growth. Thats why we decided to enter the market.”Tucek said he was confident that these developments were indicators for growing demand for hotel beds in the city.VIH, which is based in Vienna, currently operates 37 hotels in 10 European countries. Elisabeth Scheiring, a spokeswomen for the company, said last month that overnight stays at resorts managed by VIH could rise by 600,000 year on year to 2.5 million in 2010.VIH is just one of hundreds of Austrian firms doing business in Eastern Europe (EE).Leading economists expressed concerns over the stability of the Austrian financial market after the outbreak of the global economic crisis considering the intense engagement of banks in EE.