The international management agency DBI Hotels & Resorts plans to breathe new life into the modest hospitality market of Zhytomyr, the provincial capital of 260,000 inhabitants located 140 kilometers west of Kyiv.
The Switzerland-based company, which operates hotels like Ramada Encore and Hotel Number 21 in Kyiv, has started renovating a central hotel in Zhytomyr, aiming to turn it into a multifunctional space by 2021.
Called MOI Zhytomyr, the eight-story hotel will offer 145 bedrooms for 350 guests, as well as a co-working space and even a nursery on its 10,000 square meters.
One floor, for example, will be a hostel. Another will be a luxury hotel. Yet another will offer luxury apartments, Ramada Encore spokesperson Yulia Panchuk told the Kyiv Post on Dec. 18.
Depending on which floor one chooses, the prices will start from 19 euros per night and go up to the “usual prices of a three-star hotel,” Panchuk said. The average price for a room in a three-star hotel in Kyiv is around 70 euros per night.
The co-working space will operate independently, meaning that the people who use it do not have to be hotel guests.
“The idea behind the concept is to create a mini-community,” Panchuk said.
The hotel also promises to boost the local economy in Zhytomyr, creating a minimum of 100 jobs for locals, Panchuk said.
Zhytomyr is only a two-hour drive from the Kyiv city center and from Ukraine’s main airport, Boryspil. Its central location is an asset for the city, which is welcoming a growing number of companies willing to settle there every year for that reason.
In Kyiv, apart from Ramada Encore and Hotel Number 21, DBI Hotels & Resorts manages Indian restaurant The Kitchen 21. The company’s Ukrainian holdings generated a total of $2.8 million in revenues in 2019.
Its director, Sri Lanka native Irantha Duwage, is currently in negotiations to brand and manage six more properties across Ukraine, including more in Kyiv and a resort in the Carpathian Mountains.
