The first hotel in Belarus of the Russian hotel chain Amaks Grand Hotels will appear in Vitebsk

March 19, Vitebsk / Sergey Kochetov - BELTA /. A memorandum of intent on cooperation between the Vitebsk City Executive Committee and LLC "Amaks Grand Hotels" (Moscow) on the creation of a modern tourist and hotel complex in Vitebsk was signed at the international investment forum held today in the regional center, a BELTA correspondent reports. Dmitry Zlatkin, a member of the Board of Directors of the Russian company, noted in an interview with a BELTA correspondent that Amaks Grand Hotels considers Belarus to be the most promising region for development. "Currently, the priority for our company is to enter the international market, and we decided to start with the Belarusian hotel services market as the most promising for us," he said. The document signed today provides for the creation of a "4-star" hotel complex based on the "Vitebsk" hotel. The facility is planned to be commissioned in May 2010. The volume of investments in such projects in Russia is about $7 million, Dmitry Zlatkin specified. Russian businessmen consider hotels with a large number of rooms as potential objects for the implementation of investment projects, and their location is an important factor. The "Vitebsk" hotel is located in the city center, in its historical part. At the same time, the regional center, having the image of the cultural capital of Belarus, is advantageously located at the intersection of transport flows. It was these factors that attracted the investor when making the decision to implement the first foreign project in Vitebsk. "We want to make the Vitebsk project an image component of successful business development in Belarus, which can also favorably influence business communications between Russian and Belarusian business circles," noted Dmitry Zlatkin. In addition, the Russian investor is negotiating the implementation of similar projects in other regional centers of Belarus. The Russian hotel chain Amaks Grand Hotels includes 16 hotels with a total of 3.5 thousand rooms, as well as 7 sanatoriums. The chain's hotels are represented in the Moscow region, Perm, Ufa, Rostov-on-Don, Tambov, Voronezh, Kazan, Yessentuki, and other Russian cities. All hotels are united by one brand, common standards, staff training system, supply system, and customer base. The "Vitebsk" tourist and hotel complex was commissioned in 1973. It is a 12-story building with a total area of over 10.8 thousand square meters. The residential fund consists of 225 rooms for 297 people, including 12 suites, 96 business class rooms, and 117 economy class rooms. -0-