The Irkutsk tour operator “Grand Baikal” (GB) has defined the amount of investments in the mountain ski resort “Gora Sobolinaya” that was recently bought from Baikal CBK. In 2009 the company is planning to invest 70 million rubles into the new equipment, construction of infrastructure and repair of lines. Participants of the market are skeptical about the profitability of investments into a resort that operates only in winter time.
Yesterday the representative of “Grand of Baikal” has informed „Ú“ that the company management is now considering the investment budget for 2009, according to which no less than 70 million rubles shall be used for modernization of the mountain ski resort “Gora Sobolinaya”. This year this asset was bought by the tour operator from Baikal CBK. The price of the deal was not announced, but people familiar with conditions of the deal say that it was no more than 70 million rubles According to the “Grand Baikal” representative, the tour operator is planning to install an additional lift, to build a cafe, to modernize the rooms and to buy new equipment for the lines. Besides, 34.8 million rubles more of the 2009 budget shall be directed by “Grand Baikal” for the current repair and development of its objects. Last year the company spent for these purposes 47.7 million rubles. The company representative didn’t specify on where the tour operator will get money for investments.
Information
“Grand Baikal” company owns ten large rest centers, boarding houses and sanatoria in Irkutsk region and Buryatiya and “Baikal Business Center” in Irkutsk. Equal shares of the tour belong to the Baikal bank of the Sberbank of the Russian Federation and to the company “Moshotel” (structure “Bazela”). Last year the company serviced 38.5 thousand tourists. In 2008 the company profit was 38 million rubles. Mountain ski resort “Gora Sobolinaya” was founded in the early nineties as a division of BCBK. It includes a mountain-skiing center, hotels “Sobolinaya”, “Russ”, “Baikal”, a sports center “Baikal”, seven mountain-skiing lines, a slalom slope, a training slope and eight lifts. During the winter season (about six months a year) it is visited by 80-100 thousand tourists.
Experts say that investments declared by “Grand Baikal” may pay back despite the crisis. In 2008 Irkutsk region was visited by 539 thousand tourists. Vadim Kopylov from the tour company “Green Express” believes that this year the number of tourists coming to Baikal will not decrease since the outgoing tourism has become more expensive due to strengthening of dollar and euro. The head of the tour company “Baikal info” Sergey Perevoznikov asserts that the actual number of tourists coming to Angarski Krai goes down for the second year on, and in these circumstances “Grand Baikal” can reduce its prices at the resort. A representative of one more tour company that wished to remain incognito believes that investment in the mountain ski resort “Gora Sobolinaya” is senseless, since it is used only for half a year and for half a year it’s idle: “The mountain is popular among the limited number of tourists-skiers. Very few people know about it. It would be more profitable to invest money into the objects which operate in summer when most of the tourists visit Baikal”.
Commersant-East of Russia, April, 29, 2009
