<div>Pětihvězdičkový hotel v Brně se otevře za týden</div> <div>A five-star hotel in Brno will open in a week</div>

photo: Štěpán Vrzala (www.stepanvrzala.com)

Brno - A five-star hotel on Šilingrovo náměstí in Brno will open on June 8 under the name Comsa Brno Palace. It was originally supposed to be operated by the Spanish chain Barceló. Negotiations between the hotel giant, which belongs to the top twenty-five largest hotel operators in the world, and Comsa International, which bought the hotel and reconstructed it for half a billion crowns, have come to a standstill for unknown reasons. "Negotiations will continue," said Comsa representative David Fridrich to CTK today.
    Fridrich declined to comment today on why the Barceló chain no longer wants the hotel. "We have fulfilled everything we agreed upon, so there was no reason for that," Fridrich said. CTK is checking Barceló's statement. Last week, commercial director Lina Boudníková told the media, without explanation, that Barceló would not operate the Brno hotel in the Městský dvůr building. Today, CTK referred to the general director of Barceló in the Czech Republic, Anton Müller.
    Three years ago, the city of Brno sold the dilapidated building to the Spanish company Comsa for 32 million crowns. The new owner committed to reconstruct the building into a four- to five-star hotel within 36 months of obtaining a building permit. "There is no reason for the hotel not to open; we will adhere to the June 8 deadline. We accommodated Barceló and took over most of their employees who were supposed to work at the hotel," Fridrich said.
    Barceló was supposed to purchase the furnished hotel from Comsa along with the building; some items were created specifically at their request. Now, according to Fridrich, the original options are coming back into play. According to these, Comsa would run the hotel itself, another possibility is franchising, i.e., leasing the brand and know-how from one of the global chains. "There are companies that are very interested in the hotel. However, we don't mind if the hotel remains ours," added Fridrich.
    The fact that Barceló is probably no longer interested in the Brno hotel is also indicated by the fact that only two Barceló hotels in Prague appear in the list of Czech facilities on their website. Just last week, they were still offering reservations at Městský dvůr on their site. According to a statement two weeks ago from Petra Nováková from B.I.G. PR, Barceló planned to open the hotel on June 1.
    The extensive five-story palace was previously unsuccessfully offered by the city as a headquarters for the Supreme Administrative Court or the Antimonopoly Office. Due to the emergency state of the building and lack of funds for its repair, the city ultimately decided to sell the property to a private investor.
    Currently, there is only one five-star hotel in Brno, operated by the Holiday Inn chain near the exhibition center. Another four- to five-star hotels are planned to be built in Brno over the next few years on Masaryk Street by the main railway station and in the former university building at Zelný trh.
    The Barceló hotel chain is among the 25 largest hotel operators in the world. It currently operates 185 hotels with 45,000 rooms in 16 countries. It has also been active in the Czech Republic since 1993, where it built its very first hotel in Central Europe.