Mercure Oradea, the new hotel project developed in the city, involved an investment of more than €15 million and was designed as a product that combines business and leisure, gastronomy and wellness. Alina Toie, co-founder and managing partner of Spark Hospitality, discusses the hotel’s strategy, target customer segments, challenges facing the hospitality industry, team recruitment and plans for the coming years.
An investment of more than €15 million
What is the total value of the investment in Mercure Oradea and how is the project financed?
The total investment in Mercure Oradea amounts to more than €15 million and includes the land, construction, design and fit-out of the hotel, as well as the investments required for operational preparation, from systems and technology to team recruitment and training, as well as the commercial and marketing launch.
What are your estimates for first-year turnover, and how long do you expect it will take the hotel to reach financial maturity?
We have forecasts based on the evolution of demand in Oradea and the region, both in the business and leisure segments. We are at the beginning of the operating period, and our priority is to build demand sustainably across all hotel components and monitor the actual evolution of the market.
Oradea has the advantage of an interesting mix of demand: corporate activity during the week, events, city breaks and weekend tourism, complemented by its proximity to Băile Felix. For us, it is important to build the hotel’s performance around this mix rather than relying on a single segment.
What occupancy rate and average daily rate (ADR) have you budgeted for the first year of operation?
We have clear targets for occupancy and average rates, but we prefer to communicate results once we have a relevant operating period that allows for a proper assessment.
Precisely in order to reach our targeted performance level as quickly as possible, the investment did not stop at the physical product. From the outset, we built the operational structure, team, commercial tools and marketing activity needed to introduce the hotel to the market and develop demand across several segments.
Why Oradea was chosen for the investment
Why did you choose Oradea for this investment, and which local market indicators played the greatest role in the decision?
The investment decision was made by the owner, who is from Oradea and has a strong connection to the city. The project therefore started from a very good understanding of the location, as well as confidence in Oradea’s development and its potential to attract different categories of guests.
That is precisely why the project was designed from the outset around a diversified demand mix, with facilities catering both to the business and events segments and to leisure tourism, while also addressing the local community through the restaurant and spa.
The discovery of archaeological remains on the site during the development process added an unexpected dimension to the investment. Rather than remaining simply an element of the archaeological site, the history of the location was integrated into the hotel’s concept and design, and this connection with the city became part of Mercure Oradea’s identity.
Mercure Oradea’s positioning and target customer segments
How is Mercure Oradea positioned on the local hotel market, and what are the main customer segments you are targeting?
Mercure Oradea was designed to be more than a hotel offering accommodation. We have 90 rooms and suites, but around them we have built a much broader product: REI Restaurant, Stratum Spa & Wellness, meeting and event spaces, and areas that can also be discovered by the local community. At the same time, the hotel’s design starts with the very location on which it was built, the archaeological remains discovered here and the different historical layers of Oradea.
From a commercial perspective, we have two important directions. During the week, we target business travellers and companies organising meetings, conferences or events, including companies in the pharmaceutical industry. At weekends and during holiday periods, we target Romanian and international tourists who choose Oradea for a city break, are passing through or are looking for a getaway that combines the city with gastronomy and wellness.
The fact that these facilities coexist within the same hotel allows us to work with different segments while also creating reasons to visit that do not depend exclusively on accommodation.
What role do the Mercure brand and membership in Accor play in the hotel’s commercial and development strategy?
Mercure gives us the right combination of the strength of an international brand and the freedom to highlight the identity of the destination. The brand philosophy, Feel Local Everywhere, is based precisely on this idea: every hotel should be authentically connected to its destination through design, gastronomy, stories and local experiences.
At Mercure Oradea, this direction fits naturally with the project. The story of the location is visible in the design and in the integration of the archaeological remains, while the gastronomic component is built around REI Restaurant and a kitchen that focuses on seasonality and local inspiration. In this way, the Discover Local principle is not merely a brand expression, but something that can actually be experienced at the hotel.
At the same time, being part of Accor gives us international visibility and access to the group’s commercial and distribution infrastructure. For us, the strategy is to use this strength to bring guests to Mercure Oradea and then give them reasons specific to this hotel and destination to return.
Business, leisure and international tourism
How do you see demand evolving in Oradea across the leisure, business and international tourism segments?
We see these segments as complementary rather than separate. Business travel and events can support demand during the week, while the city’s heritage, gastronomy and proximity to Băile Felix create strong arguments for city breaks and weekend getaways.
For the development of international tourism, another important element is the destination’s increasingly good accessibility. Oradea currently has direct air connections with major European cities such as Warsaw, Munich, Rome, Milan and Dortmund, creating opportunities for both leisure and business segments. At the same time, connections with hubs such as Warsaw and Munich facilitate access to Oradea from markets that do not have a direct flight.
We believe it is important for this accessibility to be supported by promoting Oradea as a destination in its own right, not simply as a transit point. The hotel can contribute to this experience through accommodation, gastronomy, wellness and its connection to the city’s identity.
Challenges facing the hotel industry
What are the main risks for the hotel business over the next 2–3 years, and how do you intend to manage them?
Among the important challenges, we can mention cost pressures, the availability of qualified staff and increasingly rapid changes in booking and consumer behaviour.
For a hotel such as Mercure Oradea, one way of managing these variations is to diversify demand. We do not rely exclusively on rooms: we have business and leisure, events, a restaurant and wellness, with services aimed equally at the local community and tourists.
At the same time, service quality remains essential. The product may attract a guest for the first time, but the experience and the team are what can turn a first visit into a return visit.
How difficult was the recruitment process for the opening?
We have built a complete structure covering the departments required to operate the hotel and its facilities. For us, it was important for recruitment to reflect the complexity of the product, because Mercure Oradea is about more than rooms.
We paid particular attention to the Food & Beverage area, where the Executive Chef & F&B Director is Henrik Sebok, Certified Master Chef, with extensive international experience, as well as the wellness area, where the Stratum Spa concept involves services and treatments requiring specialised staff.
Building the Mercure Oradea team
What is your strategy for employee retention and professional development within the team?
For us, retention starts from the onboarding stage. We have an onboarding process through which new colleagues become familiar with both the hotel and the way we work, as well as the standards and culture of the Mercure brand. At the same time, we encourage recommendations from colleagues, because a team is also built through people who know the working environment and can bring suitable professionals into the organisation.
Professional development is an important component of this process. Being part of Mercure and Accor gives the team access to training resources and courses through the group’s learning platforms, alongside department-specific training. In this way, learning is not limited to the opening period or the first weeks of employment, but continues throughout their journey.
In the long term, we want to build a team that has both the tools needed to provide consistent service and the opportunity to continue learning and developing professionally within an international brand.
What are the main performance indicators you are monitoring during the first months of operation, and what results have you recorded so far?
During the first months, we are monitoring both commercial indicators and those that show us how the hotel experience is being perceived: booking pace, occupancy, average rate, the distribution of demand between business and leisure, interest in events, the restaurant and spa, as well as guest feedback.
As we are still at the beginning, we prefer to assess performance over a longer period before communicating financial or commercial results. However, the first months are already giving us a great deal of information about what guests are looking for, which facilities they use and where we can adjust the experience.
What have you learned from the first weeks of operation, and what have you already adjusted compared with the initial plan?
The first weeks of operation are when a project built on paper begins to be tested through the real experience of guests. We follow their entire journey, from booking and arrival to the restaurant, spa and departure, and the feedback we receive helps us quickly identify where adjustments are needed.
We have continuously refined communication, operational procedures and the way we present the hotel’s facilities, precisely to make the experience as intuitive as possible. This is a natural process after opening: the concept and direction remain the same, but the details are calibrated as we see how the hotel is actually being used.
Plans for Mercure Oradea
What additional investments, developments or new facilities are you planning for Mercure Oradea over the coming years?
At this stage, the priority is to maximise the potential of the facilities with which the hotel has already opened. We have a complex product, from rooms and event spaces to REI Restaurant and Stratum Spa & Wellness, and each of these components has its own development potential.
In the case of the restaurant, for example, the offering will naturally evolve through menu updates and recurring concepts that can create new reasons for guests to return, including live music evenings and other formats that we will develop depending on the public’s response.
We will monitor guest feedback and demand trends before deciding which additional investments or developments make sense.
What are the strategic objectives for Mercure Oradea over the next three years, and what would a successful project concretely mean to you?
The objective is for Mercure Oradea to become a natural choice for business travel and events, but also for those coming to discover Oradea on a city break. At the same time, we want REI Restaurant and Stratum Spa to build their own local following, so that the hotel is relevant to the surrounding community as well, not only to those staying here.
We will build this through consistent service, the development of our gastronomy and wellness components, and long-term commercial relationships.
Beyond the financial indicators, there are also several very concrete signs of success for us: guests choosing to return, companies organising their events with us again, locals coming to the restaurant or spa, and a hotel that, once the novelty of the opening has passed, continues to be chosen for the experience it provides.
