Mini-hotels in St. Petersburg will be "cleaned up"

Market of hotels in St Petersburg is waiting for a large-scale "cleaning". On April 5, 2011 mayor Valentina Matvienko authorized the police and the Committee on Tourism and Investment and to check St. Petersburg's hotels, located in the homes. After the checks St Petersburg city administration plans to make a travel list, which will include mini-hotels that have passed inspection. Other hotels will be closed. Checks will be completed before the summer season.

The main goal of the initiators is registering of mini-market hotels in St. Petersburg. A large number of small hotels, according to the authorities, spoil the image of the city. The main cause is criminal activities of some hotels that organize brothels in its buildings. The reason for checks is complaints of residents on the activities of small hotels, which are located in residential apartments.

Russian media, citing the comments of representatives of hotel business in Saint-Petersburg, noted that administrative inspections and creating of the list will lead to reduction of supply in this segment of the hotel real estate by 4-5 times.

Nowadays in St. Petersburg according to various estimates there are from 300 to 600 mini-hotels. In fact, by the number of small-class hotels St. Petersburg is the second largest city after Moscow in Russia. In 2003, when St. Petersburg faced shortage of hotel space, the city authorities asked entrepreneurs to actively develop tourism services in this area. As a result, over the past seven years the number of mini-hotels increased significantly.

According to the owners of small hotels, initiated by the Administration of St. Petersburg checks can turn into a bribery campaign for the owners of small hotels under the threat of non-inclusion into the register. According to the REGNUM news agency, on 13 April 2011 at a press conference organized by the Guild of the owners of small hotels, all owners of small hotels in the city were sent an appeal to fix the facts of unlawful pressure and extortion.

It is worth noting that in addition to attempts to "clean the lines" of the hoteliers another possible reason for increased attention to the mini-hotels of St. Petersburg from the city administration may be willing to clean up the market for large networks and developers. Today, as St. Petersburg is becoming more attractive city for a number of hotel chains, competition of small businesses can be a hindrance for the big players.

Anyway, the Guild of the owners of mini-hotels will conduct its own monitoring of activities of inspection bodies and collect all the information about violations in a joint center.