The hotel Thermal pool will not be sold, the ministry decided

Karlovy Vary - The Ministry of Finance will not sell the pool of the Thermal hotel in Karlovy Vary. Only one bidder applied for the purchase in the competition. However, the ministry rejected its intention. The ministry intends to find money for necessary investments in the hotel elsewhere, Finance Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) informed CTK today.
    The pool is part of the hotel complex, but it shows a significant investment deficit. Due to losses, the hotel closed it a year ago. Renovating the pool would require about 50 million crowns and an additional million per month for operation.
    "The goal of selling the pool was to raise money for investments in the hotel itself. In the end, however, we decided not to sell the pool and to find another source for necessary investments," Babiš stated today, adding that the hotel complex has already become an integral part of the city.
    The ministry's intention to sell the pool provoked a number of negative reactions. Private individuals and the city of Karlovy Vary requested the hotel to be listed on the register of national cultural monuments.
    Jiří Bartoška, president of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, also told reporters on Wednesday that the hotel should not be divided. "It is a whole unit and it would be disrespectful to the work of the Machonin couple, who designed it," Bartoška said.
    The grandchildren of the Machonin couple welcomed the finance minister's decision today. "We perceive today's decision as the first successful step towards declaring Thermal a monument. We consider finding money for the reconstruction of the building through means other than the gradual sale of individual parts of the entire complex to be the right solution," said Marie and Jan Kordovští.
    However, they pointed out that the hotel really needs repairs. "We believe that during the planned renovations, Thermal will be restored to a state that corresponds as closely as possible to the original designs of the architects Machonin, both in terms of the building itself and its interiors," they wrote in a statement received by CTK.
    The hotel is currently, even in the situation where the number of guests from Russian-speaking countries has significantly decreased, making a profit. For the year 2014, the Thermal hotel ended its operations with a profit of 8.7 million crowns. This year, Thermal, like other hotels in Karlovy Vary, is struggling with a decline in revenues due to the outflow of Russian and Ukrainian clients. Nevertheless, it has managed to increase year-on-year occupancy rates in some months, for example in July by five percent.
    The introduction of control mechanisms in the hotel's operations led to an overall year-on-year decrease in costs of 12 percent. Moreover, on the verge of the peak tourist season, Thermal expects an occupancy of up to 90 percent.