Hotel opens with glamour

TALLINN - On April 26, the 40-million-euro Radisson SAS hotel in Tallinn celebrated its grand opening with more than 700 guests attending a parade of official speeches, tours of the 25-story hotel and a sampling of top-knotch cuisines.

The newly-built hotel in Tallinn is the fourth by Radisson SAS in the Baltic states, following Riga, Vilnius and Klaipeda.

"I am confident that Radisson SAS, with its strong brand awareness in Europe, will bring more international travelers to the Baltic region," Kurt Ritter, president and CEO for Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, said at the opening ceremony. "Tallinn is a strategically important location for us, not only for in-bound travel, but also for increased inter-Baltic travel," he added. "As our customers develop their operations in the Baltic Sea region, they expect Radisson SAS to follow suit and this is now happening." With an additional hotel in St. Petersburg opening later this year, Radisson SAS will have a total of 1,500 rooms in the Baltic countries and Russia combined.

"After only three months in operation the hotel is doing well, and we have exceeded our projected occupancy level," said Torbjorn Bodin, the hotel's general manager. "The fine tuning of our conference services is close to completion, which enables us to promote the Radisson SAS Hotel Tallinn as the largest and the most flexible conference venue in the city."

"By promoting the Baltic destination we hope to bring some extra conferences to Tallinn," Paul Taylor, Radisson SAS regional manager for sales and marketing, told The Baltic Times. The Baltics as a tourist destination need only an introduction, according to him. There is an increasing trend of Pan-Baltic travel as local companies grow and get established, so there is less need for people to fly in from outside, he stressed.

Owners of the Tallinn project are the Finnish company SRV Development OY, the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd., the SAS Hotel Investment A/S from Denmark and the investment fund for Eastern Europe, IO - Fonden, also from Denmark. Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, currently includes 107 hotels in operation and 27 hotels under development in 38 countries and is the sole franchiser in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa for Radisson Hotels & Resorts. Radisson Hotels & Resorts and its parent company Carlson Hospitality Worldwide includes 716 hotel and resort locations representing 129,234 guest rooms in 63 countries plus five luxury cruise ships sailing worldwide.