Stordalen believes that hotels in the Nordic region are cheap – holiday in expensive luxury hotels – VG

Peter Stordalen and his girlfriend are vacationing in one of his favorite hotels – a mansion on the French Riviera with rooms for tens of thousands.

It’s heading towards a record year for hotel owner Peter Stordalen (59).

– In July, we usually win $50 million. He added that this year he may earn up to 150 million Finansavisen earlier this summer.

The last numbers show that his profits From last year 70 million Norwegian kroner. Group sales volume ended at NOK 364.3 million last year, compared to NOK 239.8 million in pandemic year 2020.

He and his girlfriend Märta Elander Wistén (32 years old) are currently vacationing at the famous luxury hotel Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, located on a cape near Nice in France.

Fantastic – and expensive

“If I had to choose a hotel other than the Nordic Choice, this would probably be one of my favorites” Stordalen wrote on Instagram On Thursday he pointed to his hotel chain.

This week the couple posted several photos of the hotel on Instagram. On Instagram stories, Wistén posted pictures of the two of them from a room with a private pool and a great view of the sea, where the couple likely lives.

To spend the night in this hotel room from Thursday to Friday costs 8,055 euros, when VG is realized. This corresponds to approximately 80,000 Norwegian kroner at Thursday’s exchange rate.

The hotel’s website states that the room is 82 sq m with a balcony of 30 sq m. In addition, it has a king bed, a marble bathroom and a private pool.

VG has been in contact with Stordalen, but he has yet to respond to questions sent to him.

The Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat is part of the Four Seasons group of hotels owned by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, which has hotels all over the world.

They wrote on the hotel’s website that a number of celebrities have stayed there over the years, including actress Elizabeth Taylor and former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

– Prices are low

Earlier this summer, Stordalen commented on hotel room rates in this country.

Hotel prices have only increased by 10-15 percent, which is lower in the Nordic countries than in most major cities in Europe, he said Finansavisen Jul 16.

They asked if the reason for the hotel price hikes was the financial losses the industry had incurred during the pandemic.

Getting a haircut at the cost of a hairdresser is like staying in many hotels. Either a haircut is too expensive, or staying in a hotel is too cheap, Stordalen said.

Read also: This is how the pandemic changed Peter Stordalen forever.

Hotel prices are going up

Preliminary figures for July from the Benchmarking Alliance show that Hotel prices are going up again after the pandemic.

The price of a hotel room in 13 large cities of the country has increased compared to the first half of last year. The price has also increased compared to what it was before the pandemic – in 2019 – in 12 out of 13 large cities.

The increase in income in the hotel industry is due to the fact that hotels have raised their rates, not that they have more rooms booked now than they did before the pandemic, the NTB wrote.

Hotels in Oslo saw a 16.6 percent increase in prices over the first half of 2019 and 60.8 percent over the first half of last year. On the other hand, the room occupancy rate in Oslo was 17.4 percent lower than it was in the first half of 2019.

At the end of June, VG investigated hotel room rates in Norway’s largest city. Then the cheapest room in central Oslo costs NOK 5,258, and the cheapest room in Bergen costs NOK 3,041. However, this week the rates are somewhat lower when checking out VG.

Hotel consultant Peter Wiederstrøm of Widerstrøm Hotel Consulting analyzed Benchmarking Alliance figures. He notes that the average cost of a hotel room is 1,250 NOK in the first half of July.

Wiederstrøm himself believes that average prices are not unreasonably high, especially given that the industry has been through two years of the pandemic.

– So to speak, all kinds of costs are rising violently, as well as for hotels. This must be covered, otherwise the hotels will not survive.

Hotel prices in Europe have risen more than 13 percent since before the pandemic, according to figures from global standards firm STR.

The company provides market analysis and statistics from more than 74,000 hotels.

– It’s extraordinarily expensive this year. Prices are a little bit artificially high, as demand is very high, and hotels are operating at dynamic rates, STR Director Thomas Emmanuel told VG last week.