Howard Johnson, 11% lower revenues in Q1

Bucharest's Howard Johnson hotel, the only five-star hotel run by a woman, ended the first three months of this year with 1.7m-euro turnover, down 10.4% from the same period of last year, according to the company's officials. "Given that the average rate per room dropped slightly on the entire hotel market, the total revenue of the hotel also posted a slight decrease," stated Sonia Nastase, general manager of Howard Johnson Grand Plaza hotel. The hotel last year generated 8m-euro turnover, down 40% from the previous year, amid the economic downturn. Sonia Nastase, 37, is the first Romanian woman running a five-star hotel of Bucharest, in the context where all the general managers of five-star units, Intercontinental, Hilton, JW Marriott, Radisson Blu or Crowne Plaza, are expats. She came at the helm of the hotel controlled by Gabriel Popoviciu last October, and four months afterward maintains 2009 was the worst. Nevertheless, the revenue indicator shows a decline in the first three months of this year, as well against 2009.