After an investment of NIS 7 million and renovation work lasting more than a year, Israel's Prima Hotels chain has relaunched Hotel 75 in Tel Aviv, at 75 Allenby Street. This brings to 14 the number of hotels in the Prima chain, including four in Tel Aviv.
Prima has built two more floors on to Hotel 75, doubling the size of the hotel to 40 rooms, while adding a café to the lobby, following the purchase of an adjoining property.
The building, which formerly served as a branch for the Clalit Health Fund, was purchased by Prima in 2012. There are plans to add another two floors with 20 more rooms. Operating under the slogan feel local, to leverage the pre-Covid international tourism trend for hotels with a more local flavor, Hotel 75 was designed by the architect Tali Lapidot.
Prima plans opening two more hotels in Tel Aviv. The first is at 81 Allenby Street in a former residential building with a preservation order that is scheduled to open as a 100-room hotel in four years. The second hotel is being built on the site of a former residential building near Dizengoff Square, and is scheduled to open with 67 rooms in two years' time.
Prima is also expanding its hotels in Jerusalem where most of the chains four hotels have been undergoing renovations, while closed over the past year due to Covid-19.
The chain, which has 1,637 rooms in hotels in Israel, is owned by the American Jewish Moskowitz family, which has hotel and real estate operations, motivated by support for Israel. The hotels are run as independent units with an emphasis on developing restaurants and cafes in the hotels.
Prima Hotels Israel CEO Avi Dor says that most of the chain's growth has coming over the past decade. "Before coronavirus growth was about 10%-15% in the number of rooms each year and even in this most difficult of years we have been busy building."
Dor describes the hotels as offering 4-star level rooms, "In a way that allows us to affordable prices for a vacation. I hear the complaints of the Israeli public about prices for a vacation in Israel and offer an alternative through an urban vacation. We represent the lowest prices on the scale for a vacation in Israel."
He added, "Before Covid foreign tourists made up most of the activities of the hotels in the chain. We saw domestic tourists at our hotels in Eilat, the Dead Sea and Tiberias but less in urban hotels. In the summer months we see 90% occupancy in Eilat, 40% in Tel Aviv and 30% in Jerusalem."
Business tourism makes up about 30% of Prima's activities in urban hotels. "We are trying to encourage domestic tourists to take a vacation in Tel Aviv, which has much to offer and we want to change the practice of the average stay from one night to two nights, through offers and discounts."
Rooms per couple this summer including breakfast cost NIS 500-700 per night midweek and NIS 700-900 per night at weekends.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 5, 2021
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