Preparing for a journey to Kiev, tourists or travelling managers beat their heads with one question: what is better – order private apartments or reserve hotel rooms? From one point of view, it is safer to live in hotels, but from another one it is better to order a comfortable flat with cozy homey atmosphere without hotel rules and other stuff. In question of apartments Kiev has great facilities for various purposes. Let’s find out pros and cons of these variants for settling down there.
The Ukrainian capital undoubtedly has a developed infrastructure of hotels to accommodate different foreign visitors – from tourists to international diplomatic delegations. 5 stars Premier Palace Hotel offers rooms from 300 to 500 euro per night. This price bracket is rather expensive for average tourist, even if to take into account the quality of service and hotel amenities. 3 stars hotels like Ukraine Hotel or Rus Hotel offer rooms from 80 to 250 euro per night. They have a range of room types from ‘basic’ to ‘lux’ and are fully suitable for unpretentious tourists, who can spend such money for average service quality and interior beauty. As for private daily rent apartments Kiev offers comfortable one room flats with kitchen, bathroom and all home like features for about 50 euro. Most of such offerings includes the cost of regular cleaning, change of linen and paper work for enterprise accounting if you are in trip for business.
It is obvious that price is not the hotel’s long suit. It is more reasonable to save money for entertainment and tours around the city, as Kiev has many exciting historical sites to visit, and it is much more useful way of spending money in Ukrainian capital.
But it is not so “ugly” to live in hotels. The main advantage of living in hotels is that they can hold big groups of people in one place. You do not need to spend much time on gathering all your company to go for excursions or a business conference. So, the hotels are a good variant for corporative visits, big commercial or governmental delegations, etc. Usually hotels offer lots of additional services, like transporting, banquets holding, the organization of various parties and business appointments. For the people from other countries this is very convenient, as usual they have no local connections for such deals and the best way if they can rely on somebody’s help. But all depends on your budget.
Each hotel has its own schedule – the breakfast time, the closing time, etc. It is not very comfortable to for tourists who usually walk around the city till late night, visiting various places of interests and local cafes. If you do not want to conform to hotel routine, you should rent a separate apartment to be able to do whatever you want and whenever you want.
Apartments for daily rent will save not only your money, but also provide with utmost comfort, much alike with home atmosphere. Such private flats have no status like number of stars, they do not famous abroad. That is why their owners try to make it as attractive for renters as possible, using modern interior, comfortable furniture and equipment that are very far from post Soviet conditions in average standard hotel. Unfortunately many hotels have20 or even 30 years old furniture and interior decoration. For most tourists it is like a journey to the deep past, having nothing in common with comfort. People like places where they can relax and feel like at home. If you are reckoned among such guys, make a choice for benefit of private daily rent apartments or be ready to spend oodles of money for passable hotel room.
Recently it became popular to meet important foreign guests in private mansions, located in the Kiev suburbs. Far from city noise and annoying attention, such apartments can satisfy the most fastidious client. Usually there are a little park around the house with lake or fountain, separate standing guesthouses, place for barbecue, pool and sauna. Usually such daily rent private complex costs not more than then decorous hotel room. But instead of comfortable room, you also get your own courtyard and enough place to have guests or live in a big company of friends and colleagues.
The competition between hotels and private apartment offerings is rather heavy now, and lots of hotel holders have understood the necessity of changes to the modern style of comfort and service. Hope this will help them to save their positions in the real estate market. Objectively, private flats in Kiev are better variant for most of European and American visitors from other countries, as they are closer to their home conditions, and therefore are more preferable for renting.