The big hotel news out of Russia recently was the announcement by venerable Italian jewelry house Bulgari that it would build its first hotel in that country in Moscow. Bulgari’s CEO told Reuters that he was “extremely confident” in the future of luxury in Russia, despite currency weakness and economic sanctions.
That optimism despite obstacles is an echo of an earlier time. “Running a luxury hotel in Russia is an uphill battle,” according to HOTELS magazine’s April 1992 issue. “The food queues get worse by the day.”
If you were a big hotel—like the Savoy, the Metropol or the Olympic Penta—you weren’t just worried about serving customers, you wanted to make sure your staff could eat, too. Then, as now, the focus on people was paramount.
What to do? The Savoy became self-sufficient. “We started our own infrastructure,” said Sergei Skobkine, general director. That meant a limousine service, a laundry service and a diesel boiler, along with fuel and food imported from Finland.
The Metropol, managed by InterContinental, had food trucked in from France weekly. Most of the food at the Penta came from Stuttgart. Meat and fresh milk were purchased from a reliable supplier: McDonald’s. On-duty staff at most places got free meals and deeply subsidized dinners.
And everywhere were frustrations with the bureaucracy. “No one seems to have any concept of getting anything done in a timely manner,” a Radisson manager complained.
The upsides: Young staff, keen and well-educated. Highly skilled craftspeople. And it was a profitable place to run a hotel, if you could make it work, with hotels citing profit margins from 50% to 62%.
But was it worth the trouble? Again, it all comes down to the people.
To quote the Penta’s assistant executive manager, Paul Dalrymple: “We have customers—which is more than can be said for some parts of the world. And I wouldn’t swap my staff here for any staff anywhere.”