JW Marriott under renovation. No events to be held for a month

JW Grand Marriott, Bucharest's biggest five-star hotel in terms of turnover, has closed all event rooms until March 13th to renovate its first floor, a 1.2 million-euro investment. This is only the first stage of the renovation process, which will continue in 2011 with the hotel's 402 rooms.
"We are modernising the Grand Ballroom event hall and the Vienna Cafe on the first floor. We will see a loss as far as event organising is concerned, but we have provided for it in this year's budget," said Dina Litzica, the hotel's PR and marketing manager, without specifying what this loss amounts to. Event organising generates 50% of the hotel's overall revenues, given that the hotel operates 12 conference rooms that can accommodate 2,000 people.
According to ZF estimates, last year the hotel used to collect around 1.2 million euros on average per month from events, considering the 14 million-euro estimated revenues from this business.
JW Marriott has yet to report financial results for last year, but ten months into the year it posted a 22% decline, according to previous statements from Igael Porecki, the hotel's general manager, who took over at the helm of the hotel in August last year.
In 2008, JW Marriott reported a 17.1 million-euro loss and an almost 38 million-euro turnover, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.