Louis Group announces radical facelift of Paphos hotel

Costakis Loizou, the Executive Chairman of the Louis Group of companies, has announced the start of the complete renovation of the Cali Hotel (formerly the Crown Resorts Horizon), in the Coral Bay area of Paphos.

According to Loizou, the hotel, which has 210 rooms, will be completely renovated and upgraded to five stars by its anticipated reopening date of 1 May, 2024.

€11 million renovation

Speaking in the framework of Louis Plc’s AGM, he said that the company, which is now mainly a hotel company (with 4 privately owned hotels- two in Protaras and two in Corfu- and another 20 rented or under management), has undertaken its future development with carefully-considered steps.

This year, many renovation and upgrading works were carried out at various hotels within the Group, with a total budget of around €11 million, Loizou elaborated.

Withing this context, a large-scale renovation with a total budget of €6.5 million was carried out at the Kerkyra Blue Hotel N' Spa, which was upgraded to a five-star hotel and opened on May 1, 2023.

Investing in technology

In addition to the significant investments already underway in hotel technology and automation, Louis is also investing in protection systems against malicious cyberattacks, securing both the company's data and that of its thousands of customers.

"Today's visitor, who is indeed more demanding, also attaches great importance to issues summarised under the initials ESG - Environment, Social: social issues and Governance: good management. These concepts are now imperative in our lives and in the operation of modern businesses through relevant directives of the European Union, which are slowly being incorporated in the member states as national legislation and regulations. Concepts such as green development, green loans, environmental studies are already part of our daily life. In this context, we are also moving forward, in collaboration with other strategic partners, in investments in green energy, specifically in photovoltaic parks," Costakis Loizou underlined.

Last-minute bookings and the renewed increase in borrowing

Although Louis entered 2023 with great optimism, April and May nevertheless defied expectations, with hotel occupancy below what had been anticipated.

"Fortunately, the bookings for the rest of the season, both in Cyprus and in Greece, appear to be encouraging,” Loizou said, adding, however, that the trend being formed is that of last minute bookings. “However, we hope that with the continuation of our hard work, we will have a good year this year, despite the fact that the negative output of 2022 unfortunately continues," noted Loizou.

He also added that with the sale of the five hotels in 2020, the Group's aim was to substantially reduce bank borrowing, as well as to implement a dividend policy. "Loans have actually decreased substantially and we have managed to distribute some dividends as well. However, due to the pandemic, the Group's activities were negatively affected. As a result, we were forced to increase bank lending again," he said, while assuring that in the next five years and depending on its results, the Group's priority is to reduce bank lending and gradually restore the distribution of dividends

How damages were reduced

Louis Plc announced noticeably increased turnover for the past year. Turnover from continuing operations for 2022 was €98 million compared to €44.9 million in 2021, representing an increase of €53.1 million or 118.3%, mainly due the Group's operations continuing to be greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic in 2021.

For the year ending December 31, 2022, the hotels were closed in the first months and began operating again with better conditions around the end of May, contributing much more to the turnover of the Group, especially during the months of August to October.

In 2022, Loizou added, the cases of coronavirus, both in Cyprus and in Greece, showed a significant reduction, especially during the second half of the year, thus allowing the gradual lifting of most restrictive measures and the recovery of the economy, with a positive impact on tourism industry and by extension on the Group’s results.

The consolidated net loss after tax attributable to the company's shareholders amounted in 2022 to €8.9 million compared to a loss of €30.3 million in 2021. That is, there was a significant decrease in the net loss for the year of € 21.4 million

The improvement is due to the fact that results from operations after the Group's net financing costs showed a loss of €6.2 million compared to a loss of €13.1 million in 2021., while the tax increase for 2022 of €5 .8 million, mainly due to the adjustment of deferred taxation resulting from adjustments to the accumulated tax losses carried forward, as well as temporary tax differences.

Besides, as the Executive Chairman of Louis Plc pointed out, the discontinued operations related to shipping activities showed a loss of €20.6 million in 2021, while there was no impact in 2021, due to the change in ownership of Celestyal Cruises. This results in a positive deviation of €20.6 million, he said.

(Source: InBusinessNews)