The plan is to buy an existing hotel, which would be completely renovated according to Intercontinental standards.
Serbian company Delta Holding, owned by controversial businessman Miroslav Mišković, and the InterContinental Hotel Group IHG are negotiating about opening a Intercontinental Hotel in Zagreb, reports Poslovni.hr on March 22, 2017.
Although the original plan was to buy land and start building a completely new hotel, they have decided to start negotiations on the purchase of an existing hotel, which meets all the strict standards of the group and which would then be fully renovated. This has been confirmed by Živorad Vasić, vice president of Delta Holding and area general manager of IHG. “We intend to bring InterContinental to Zagreb, as well as Crowne Plaza hotels to Priština and Skopje. We would invest funds, and IHG would manage the hotels. This is a unique formula which has already been successfully implemented in two cities, and there is no reason why the new projects would be any less successful”, said Vasić.
After investing in Crowne Plaza Belgrade and InterContinental Ljubljana, Delta Holding concluded that Zagreb and Belgrade also needed a hotel belonging to the famous brand. “It makes sense to start from Ljubljana, go to Zagreb and end up in Belgrade, so that in every capital city in the region we have at least one hotel from the IHG group”, said Vasić.
Vasić added that the investment had the support of mayor of the Croatian capital. “I would like to express my gratitude to Mayor Milan Bandić, who welcomed us in an impressive manner and gave us his full support”, said Vasić, adding that they had started inspecting potential locations for the hotel in Zagreb. He noted that the building should meet the basic InterContinental standards. The hotel would then be completely renovated, so that it rises to standards of a five-star hotel.
Although he did not want to reveal whom they had met in Zagreb, Vasić admitted the talks had begun. “We all know that the process will take some time, but Delta Holding sincerely hopes that we will soon have an Intercontinental Hotel in Zagreb.”
The first Intercontinental Hotel in the former Yugoslavia was opened in Zagreb, at the today’s Hotel Esplanade in 1964, while in 1975 the brand moved into a skyscraper at Savska Street. It operated there until the mid-1990s, when it was bought by Ivica Todorić and renamed Opera. In 2002, the hotel was bought by entrepreneur Anđelko Leko, who made a deal with Starwood to rebrand it as Westin.
