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History of the marketing programme of Polish Prestige Hotels & Resorts

The idea behind having this Programme was to establish a serious alternative on the Polish market in the face of the growing presence of foreign hotel chains which were stripping Polish hotels from their identity.

The area of co-operation in the Programme involves those hotels which:

• are not part of world-wide hotel chains,
• offer outstanding standards and service quality,
• are not rival to one another (as being localised in different places or operating on markets of different potentials),
• have been qualified to at least three-star category.
• heir base programmatic line promotes Polish heritage and cultural identity.

On the initiative of Hotel Jan III Sobieski—nine hotels (Programme founders) signed a “Framework Co-operation Agreement” at the end of 1997 as a kind of the Programme’s Constitution which gave birth to the marketing programme of Polish Prestige Hotels.

Promotion of the new “Polish Prestige Hotels” brand and, from 2003 on, the “Polish Prestige Hotels & Resorts” and its consistent promotion on the international and domestic tourist market is an effect of the work done by the hotels involved in the Programme.

The scope and type of the commitments made by the parties to the Agreement show that the "Polish Prestige Hotels & Resorts" is a marketing programme. Its core component until 2006 was a discount programme for base prices of rooms charged by PPH&R hotels and a simple procedure rewarding those visitors who chose the PPH&R hotels (discount was granted to any visitor who produced a residence card from another PPH&R hotel).

The programme was addressed to individual visitors but companies may get recommendations from particular hotels, should they become interested in the Programme. The recommendation would open way to bilateral negotiations between a hotel involved in the Programme and a company on price discounts granted to the whole company, not just to its selected employees.

The Polish Prestige Hotels & Resorts Programme continues to be the promotion co-operation formula used to gain more visitors and, by this, to increase sales. The Programme is addressed, in the first place, to the business guests segment and its motto was “Prestige has its value – stay with us.” Right now, we are inspired by the motto: “You’ll come, you’ll enjoy, you’ll return...”

The Group PPH&R represents the second-largest hotel potential in this country and it increasingly strongly emphasizes its presence on the market. Several thousand of hotel nights were served under the Programme by the end of 2005. Their number is much higher today.

Here are some milestone facts from the Programme’s history:

1.    Registration by the Patent Office of the Polish Prestige Hotels logo and publication of a joint advertising folder in Polish and

       English. (2000)

2.    Approval of the document defining the minimum standards and quality requirements for the PPH&R hotels.        

3.    In order to better monitor the Programme’s efficiency, the statistic tools were introduced to measure hotel services sales at PPH&R

       group.

4.    Competition for the Hotel Service Quality at PPH&R hotels. The competition was organised by an external company and it  provided an 
       independent jury.

The competition included the following events:

•  A cooking competition PPH "The Professional of the Year 2001," at Hotel "Klimczok" Szczyrk, 8. 06. 2001. It was held at Hotel  
   Klimczok’s Congress Hall where teams from 15 PPH hotels were cooking their meals. The competition organisers were: Polish
   Prestige Hotels and the Catering Committee of the Polish Association of Hotels.
•  The 4th Competition of Polish Prestige Hotels Bar Tenders at "Green Hotel" Komorniki, on 24. 11. 2001. On November 24, 2001, 
   the 4th edition of the Competition of Polish Prestige Hotel Bar Tenders was held at the Green Hotel in Komorniki outside Poznań. 
   The competition was held by 26 entrants.
•  A competition "Professional Chef of the year and the Bar Tenders’ competition at the HP Park Plaza Hotel in Wrocław in 2004.
•  A cooking competition "The Professional of the Year” at HP Park Plaza Hotel in Wrocław in 2007.
•  A cooking competition "The Professional of the Year” at HP Park Plaza Hotel in Wrocław in 2008.

5.    In 2002, an initiative was made to add to the PPH hotels, which offer business services, some other hotel businesses localised in
       attractive places, away from big cities and, at the same time, equipped with adequate services and infrastructures supporting leisure
       and recreation, sports, and spa facilities. On the Programme’s initiative, several such hotels were invited to co-operation and they
       altogether formed a group named Polish Prestige Resorts, which added leisure and holiday services to the range of services offered
       by the business hotels. Visitors using PPH hotels are eligible for up to 10% room price discount at PPR hotels. Hotels of both groups
       run mutual promotion of services rendered by their partner-hotels and co-operate in implementing various joint projects.
6.    For the first time in the history of the Programme, PPH&R went to exhibition-fairs abroad as a Group not, like before, when they showed
       themselves as individual hotels making only a slight mention of the Group PPH and PPR when advertising their own, particular
       services (Group PPH was represented at the exhibition-fairs in Kaunas, Kiev, and London). (2002)
7.    Organisation of a Study Tour for foreign tour operators. (2003)
8.    Organisation of a series of events promoting a qualified tourism programme known as the National Sailing Race PPH and PPR in
       Mikołajki and Augustów. (the years 2002-2006)
9.    Introduction of a Web Booking and Sales System at hotels taking part in the Programme. (2004)
10.  Establishing the Polish Prestige Hotels Foundation. (May 2005)
11.  Introduction of a new on-line booking system shared by all the PPH&R hotels. (September 2006)
12.  Launching a new Web site www.pphotels.pl. (September 2006)
13.  Expansion of the PPH&R chain membership eligibility rules. (November 2006)
14.  The Foundation acquires the PPH&R and PPH brand from Hotel Jan III Sobieski and starts arrangements for the registration of the
        PPH&R brand on the entire European Union territory. (December 2006)
15.   Introduction of a loyalty programme for individual visitors. (March 2007)
16.   Launching a new, high-tech Internet portal of the Group hotels and an innovative on-line booking system (supported by Ajax
         technology) www.hotelePPH.pl (December 2008)
17.   Participation in the summer exhibition-fair Targi Lato 2009. (April 2009)

As many as 37 selected top-standard hotels are now in the PPH&R marketing Programme.

Warsaw, July 21, 2010.