Making statements about the evaluations of 2023 and expectations for 2024, Tolga Kilit, Board Member of Kilit Hospitality Group (KHG), gave information about the re-segmentation of the group's Crystal Hotels. Additionally, Kilit evaluated the 2023 season and shared the group's expectations and pricing policy for 2024.
"Emerging markets compensate for the significant decline experienced in Russia"
Tolga Kilit, noting that the number of visitors arriving by air to Antalya exceeded the years 2019 and 2022, stated, "2023 was a good year. Yes, it was a challenging and difficult period. Unfortunately, it was a year that started with an earthquake and continued with two consecutive elections. It turned out to be a season where our hotels were still operational, even when we thought it would be a short season like 2022, and even October is going well. Tourism is still ongoing in Antalya. I hope it will continue towards certain points in November. On the other hand, many markets have emerged where we can compensate for the significant decline in the Russian market. The UK, Poland, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic markets made a big leap, Romania doubled. Looking at these markets, it brought us to a point where we could tolerate the losses we experienced from our Russian and Ukrainian markets. There was an unexpected domestic market boom. This also benefited us greatly."
"Cost balance shifted in luxury product groups"
Kilit mentioned that 2023 did not satisfy everyone and said, "The cost balance in luxury properties have shifted so much and they invest more to balance the cost increase of over 20 percent, and an attempt was made to establish a certain price balance. Resistance to the price was formed, and occupancy rates progressed accordingly. Some hotels softened their pricing policies. In the end, it may not have been a period that satisfied everyone in terms of occupancy, but I am very happy because of the market diversity and the extension of the season due to this diversity. Because Europe provides a significant advantage in both the front and back seasons, as we call it. We are currently seeing the impact of this."
"We switched to a single pricing policy"
Stating that they have switched to a fixed pricing policy in the group's hotels, Kilit made the following statements about the new pricing policy:
"To be a global company, we now need to have global prices. I am against having a different prices for different markets. That's why we switched to a single pricing policy. In the single pricing policy, we took a step back in our pricing that we thought was high. Or we took further steps in pricing that we thought was low. But we did all of this while considering our cost balance. We have now reached a point where all our prices are equal. I think there may be initial difficulties in large companies like ours for single pricing policy, but I think they will be very small in scale. This will seriously ensure my credibility. Now everyone is aware of what is being sold for what price in the online world. The guest is very smart, very experienced, very conscious. I believe that having a single price for my products will give me a great advantage due to this awareness."
"We need to create a brand for Crystal as well"
Tolga Kilit also share details of group's plan about segmentation of Crystal Hotels:
"Crystal Hotels are a brand that currently includes 17 facilities. It needs to balance its own hotel segmentation accordingly. Yes, they are all Crystal Hotels, they all have very good recognition because the name Crystal itself has recognition. But we also need to do a segmentation within ourselves. Just looking at it as luxury and mid-range is not enough. The location of the hotel, the size of the land, the facilities offered in the hotel, whether there is a water park, these factors are important. Because some of our hotels have very serious water park facilities. Some of our hotels don't have the same. We need to segment this. Because it's one of the preference reasons. So, what do we mean by segmentation? We made a very serious breakthrough with Nirvana. In this breakthrough, we put good concepts, brought differences. We acquired an image of a vegan restaurant, a pet-friendly hotel. We put in Nespresso, we put in Starbucks."
"We will make small touches"
"In tourism, you need to keep moving forward constantly. When you look today, Nirvana Hotels have nearly 6,000 members. There are those who come only for the vegan restaurant or for fitness. Such a circulation has been created that now we looked at how much of these concepts, these projects can be integrated into Crystal Hotels correctly. That's why we will make some updates to some of our hotels in terms of concept. This is what I mean by segmentation. Crystal will remain as Crystal, but by making small touches within it and marketing it correctly to the guests, we will achieve a good result.
"If you stay where you are, you'll be on the losing side"
Crystal is a very good brand, but we need to offer stronger things to people. In tourism, you have to keep taking steps constantly. Unfortunately, when you stay in one place, you end up on the losing side. That's why we need to innovate. We need to put the right concepts. Investment never ends in both Crystal and Nirvana. But we need to ensure the transformation of this investment with different concepts."
