The Grand Hotel Kempinski Vilnius, operating in a historical 19-century building facing the central Cathedral Square, will be replaced in May by the Curio Collection by Hilton, one of the largest international Hilton chains.
It will be the first Curio Collection by Hilton luxury brand hotel in the Baltics. Lithuanian-owned Apex Alliance Hotel Management has been chosen as the hotel manager, the company said.
According to Marius Jakulis Jason, owner of Kempinski, a franchise agreement has been signed with Hilton, which owns more than 7.5 thousand hotels worldwide. The contract with the current hotel manager is terminated by mutual agreement.
“Following the challenging Covid-19 pandemic in the hotel market, the hotel industry has returned to business as usual, and it is now possible to budget revenues and expenses with reasonable accuracy. This year, we will increasingly compare our results no longer with 2019, but with budgets and results for 2023. I am in good spirits and continue to actively seek investment opportunities both in Lithuania and abroad,” said Jakulis Jason in a statement.
He believes that Hilton will enhance the global profile of this historic hotel and, by extension, of Vilnius and Lithuania.
Apex Alliance Hotel Management director Giovanni Valentini said the company will now have four hotels in Europe in its luxury portfolio.
According to him, the hotel will have a new manager and no other changes in the team are planned at the moment.
Curio Collection by Hilton is a global chain of 160 five-star hotels in exclusive buildings or suburbs.
Apex Alliance Hotel Management, part of the Apex Alliance group, manages 15 hotels in Italy, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. In Lithuania, it currently manages five hotels: the Radisson Collection Astorija Vilnius, Park Inn by Radisson, Hilton Garden Inn Vilnius, Courtyard by Marriott City Center and Moxy Kaunas Center.
In 2024, the company plans to open two more Hilton hotels in Venice and Tallinn.
The five-star Grand Hotel Kempinski Vilnius opened in 2012, following seven years of renovations to the historical 19-century building that originally hosted a telegraph company. The investment in the hotel amounted to around 40 million euros. Last summer, the hotel hosted US President Joe Biden.
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