Wolfgang Teufl

With its 84 rooms, the first-class Hotel Ametyst in Prague is not a big hotel. When you enter, you won’t find yourselves in any cavernous reception hall talking to the front desk staff through a mist of impersonality. The hotel is very elegant, but still maintains an intrinsically homely atmosphere, which is also a reflection of the character of its manager Wolfgang Teufl, a distinctly homely gentleman himself. I went to see him recently, when the Czech hotel industry as a whole was bearing the full brunt of the ongoing economic crisis. Gloom and doom is rampant among quite a few Prague hotel managers, but Mr. Teufl and his excellent hotel seem to be riding out the storm quite successfully.

Haven’t you also been affected by the dramatic decrease in tourism in the Czech capital over the past year?

Of course we have! Business decreased last year by about 15%, which means that the occupancy rate was at around 62%. In comparison with other hotels, this was not bad at all, but of course it could have been better.

The crisis has led to a drop in the number of people from the UK, USA and Russia. On the other hand, we have had a lot more guests from Poland and Slovakia. We also will be getting more guests sent by German and Dutch companies that specialise in medical tourism.

The competition must be very tough indeed in Prague at the moment.

Unfortunately, even more hotels were built in Prague last year and others are still going up, and these won’t go away when the recession ends. You might like to know that Prague hotels have around 105,000 bedrooms, whereas those in Vienna have only 55,000. In addition to that, Vienna is doing a lot of advertising to bring in business to their hotels, something that Prague is not doing. There are no longer any adverts on CNN or any other popular news channels. Despite all this, things are looking good for the high season this year. We expect to have a similar or slightly higher occupancy rate than we did last year.

Before coming to see you, I took a look at internet guest reviews concerning Hotel Ametyst, and those tend to be very positive indeed, with guests especially appreciating the friendliness, cleanliness and food in your hotel. Could you have a better advert that that?

These reviews couldn’t be better even if I wrote them myself. Luckily, I don’t need to do such things, as I have 100% trust in our staff and know that we offer an excellent product. Overall we have an excellent reputation on the internet, which accounts for around 65% of our bookings through reservation systems like Expedia, Booking.com, Lastminute.com, etc. I myself always take a look at such reviews before going to stay anywhere abroad. We always try to talk to every guest that has been staying here to ask them if they have been satisfied by their stay here. It naturally happens now and again that someone is unhappy about something, in which case we always seek to compensate them, offer them a free drink or something like that.

I suppose reduced business means that you have put a stop on improvements in the hotel.

Well, in 2008, we invested about 1.5 million euros into renovating the whole hotel, so last year we only needed to further improve the sauna and wellness area, which is now really very beautiful indeed. Guests paying the higher rates in the executive rooms can use these facilities free of charge.

Guest feedback on the internet is especially appreciative of your hotel restaurant. Do you get people coming in to eat from the street?

Not very much, but people from the offices in the surroundings come to us when they want good business lunches. I must say I agree with what our guests say about the quality of the food served here. If you look at the prices on the menu, you will see that we are not out to make large profits in the restaurant. We regard it more as a way of providing our guests with added value. We now have a new cook. He’s Czech, but he worked for some time in Val Gardena in Italy, where he learned how to make authentic Italian dishes. I have to admit that his pasta, fish and seafood are quite excellent.

Not all hotels in Prague will survive the ongoing crisis. What is your recipe for survival?

If you are not part of a powerful global network, then you cannot survive unless you really provide your guests with genuine personal service. It is very important not only to keep your standards, but to continually improve them. We in Ametyst are always looking at new ways of providing our guests with added value, such as free WiFi/LAN connection or something different... We are serious when we say that Hotel Ametyst aims to be our guests’ home away from home. And I think that the reviews on the internet show that I’m not talking out the back of my head.

www.hotelametyst.cz