While Vilnius hoteliers claim that the NATO summit was not necessarily a boon for their business, they expect that the city’s tourism sector will reap the benefits of the event for a long time to come.
Overlooking the central Cathedral Square and just steps away from the Presidential Palace, the Grand Hotel Kempinski Vilnius hosted the most illustrious delegation of the NATO summit, that of US President Joe Biden.
The hotel’s general manager Kai Schukowski says that during the US president’s stay on July 10-12, Kempinski saw the highest daily revenue in its history.
“The NATO summit was very financially rewarding, with the highest daily revenue in the hotel’s history. We also believe that the visit of the US president will have a positive impact on the global image of the hotel and the brand itself,” Schukowski told the news agency Elta. “We had a similar case when the Japanese prime minister stayed with us – we saw a significant increase in Japanese tourists after his visit.”
The suite where the US president stayed could not be seen for 24 hours after Biden’s departure due to security reasons. However, there are already people interested to stay in the same rooms.
“We have received a number of calls from people who want to book the room. Some have already done so. Some of them are Lithuanians. People want to stay where the president lived. Of course, this room had been there before, but now it is more attractive,” Schukowski told LRT TV.
The price was not an obstacle to those eager to book the suite.
“The rate depends on the day. When the president was visiting, it was different. From next month, it will be around 2,500-3,000 euros per night. We think it’s a decent price for the bed the president slept in,” according to the general manager of the Grand Hotel Kempinski Vilnius.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron spent a few nights at the Stikliai hotel. Mantė Valotkaitė, its sales and events manager, said that although she could not disclose the hotel’s revenue, the restaurant where the Macrons were having their meals reported usual revenue levels.
“It was very successful, everything went very smoothly, the delegation was polite, pleasant and they liked the food, the environment and the service,” Valotkaitė told Elta. “We can say that the hotel was fully booked. For the restaurant, the revenue was not higher than usual, but in general we are happy that the visit went smoothly.”
Donatas Mekionis, sales director of the Pacai Hotel, which hosted British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said the two days of the summit were very profitable for the hotel. However, he added, it had lower than usual occupancy just before and after the event.
“It will probably all even out, we didn’t get a big boon out of it. Because the hotel was booked exclusively, we couldn’t welcome guests to the restaurant or the spa,” he said.
The Pacai representative believes the visit will prove beneficial for Lithuanian tourism and hotels in general, since in addition to NATO leaders, Vilnius was visited by thousands of journalists.
“I think that Lithuania’s popularity with tourists will definitely grow, because if you see the number of journalists on the streets and the number of live reports they did on NATO, there was information everywhere about what Lithuania is like, what Vilnius is like,” he said. “It would be hard to buy the publicity that Lithuania and Vilnius received during these few days, even if you spent millions.”
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