Strok in resort deal at Dubrovnik hotel

Croatian hotelier Goran Strok, who heads the Wren's Hotel Group, has completed a deal with Aman Resorts to open a resort in his Excelsior hotel in Dubrovnik.

The Aman group, which specialises in running luxury resorts worldwide, has leased the old part of the Dubrovnik hotel and will open in summer 2003. It will be Aman's second European resort. The first is in Courcheval.

Strok, whose father was a senior army general under Tito in the former Yugoslavia, has built up his Anglo-Croatian hotel company to 10 hotels since he bought the Gran Hotel Bonavia, in Rijeka, Croatia, in January 1995. Later that year he bought the Sir Christopher Wren's House hotel in Windsor, Berkshire and the group now owns other hotels in Berkshire, Gloucestershire and Scotland.

The group, which goes under the name Adriatic Luxury Hotels in Croatia, now has a total turnover of more than £15m, and Strok said last week he felt his hotels in his home country were well placed to benefit from the return of tourists to the area.

Dubrovnik is recovering but still has some way to go. Before the war in Croatia there were 18,000 hotel bedrooms in the city; now there are just 5,500. Other hotel groups looking at opening in the city include Ritz-Carlton and Radissson.

Strok is also considering buying hotels in other parts of the world, including Sri Lanka.

He said: "It is an emerging market and, like all emerging markets, if you come in at the right time you will get an important advantage."

by David Harris
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 21-27 March 2002