We are the top operator of mountain resorts and tourist services in the region of Eastern and Central Europe. We are a major investor in the Tatra region with ambitions to become the largest player in tourism in CEE by means of quality enhancement and extension of the service offer.
By capitalizing on our position of a natural monopoly due to the unique position of the Tatras, to become a premier, internationally renowned tourism services provider striving to revive mountain resorts, aquaparks, theme and amusement parks in the region of Central and Eastern Europe from the investment, sports, cultural, and social point of view.
TMR’s mission is to provide services in tourism at a constantly increasing level, in particular through business activities divided into three key segments – Mountains & Leisure, Hotels, and Real Estate, where the Mountain & Leisure segment covers operation of mountain resorts, an aquapark, a leisure park and additional services throughout the year. The Company plans to fulfil its mission through synergies leading to a complex satisfaction of both, its clients and shareholders.
The long term strategic goal of the Company for the next ten years is to gain a leading role in winter and summer tourism in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. Leadership in the area of tourism provides TMR with the ability to set trends and standards in this industry. At the same time it leads the Company to differentiation. As a result, TMR works on offering premium services for reasonable prices in comparison with other similar resorts in Europe. A wide spectrum of services and their quality are the key for the Company’s direction. This goal is based on three pillars, which are highly interconnected:
Pillar 1: Increasing Quality through Investments
By the end of 2016, for the last ten years TMR had invested in its resorts and hotels around 230 million euros. As a result of these investments, the services provided by TMR in the High and Low Tatras improved significantly. TMR resorts thus reached the level of Alpine resorts, and increased their leading position in the region within the industry. Investments completed in the last ten years include eleven new cableways, which means an increase of the transportation capacity by 59%; extension of technical snowmaking by more than 100% to total of 54 km of ski trails with snowmaking and 811 snow guns; ski trail areas larger by 46%, in total length of 73 km in both the High and the Low Tatras; or tens of après ski bars and restaurants on the slopes of the ski resorts. Other investments were aimed at improvement and renovation of accommodation capacities, and enhancement of infrastructure in all the resorts and at enhancement of services and operations, such as the Tropical Paradise in Aquapark Tatralandia. In the following periods TMR plans for its resorts in the Slovak Tatras to grow organically and capitalize on the completed investments. Future CAPEX in the Slovak resorts will mainly cover maintenance investments and investments into additional enhancement of services provided, tailored to customers’ needs, such as lodging facilities, après-ski and dining options, and other complementary services. As for investments into development of the newly acquired assets, the same as in Slovakia, TMR plans to develop “The New Era of SON and Silesian Amusement Park”. TMR plans to get the Polish SON resort to the level of its Tatra resorts. In the medium term TMR committed to modernize and expand the resort by investing over EUR 30 mil. there. At the same time, since the operations takeover in May 2015 Silesian Amusement Park is undergoing a five-year modernization project with the budget of EUR 30 mil.
Pillar 2: Strategic Acquisitions and Expansion of Operations in the CEE Region
After fulfillment of the primary vision of – New Era of the Tatras – in 2012/13, TMR currently concentrates on strategic acquisitions of ski resorts and amusement parks on the local market, as well as on the international level, namely in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The most recent addition to the Company`s portfolio was Silesian Amusement Park in Poland in May 2015. Other key acquisitions include the ski resort Szczyrkowski Ośrodek Narciarski (SON) in the Polish Beskids from March 2014 or Holiday Resort Tatralandia, acquired in April 2011, which includes Aquapark Tatralandia and Holiday Village Tatralandia. Strategic expansion of the operations on the neighboring Czech market includes an indirect minority interest in Melida a.s., the operator of the Špindlerův Mlýn resort. In 2013 TMR founded a Polish company – Korona Ziemi Sp. z o.o. – together with the Polish town of Zawoja as part of establishing TMR’s presence on the Polish market.
Pillar 3: Constant Operations & Services Enhancement
Management wants to achieve intensive growth of the number of visitors primarily by intensive customer orientation. Strategic steps to achieve this goal include increasing the variety and quality of the services provided. TMR expands the scale of attractions offered and improves the quality of ski schools, ski equipment rentals, and dining facilities on slopes. Moreover, it continuously improves the offer of après ski possibilities. The Company also tries to optimize transport possibilities to its resorts and cooperates with local business entities on the level of regional clusters. TMR prefers to cooperate rather than compete with them; it wants to build on their success and provide their customers easy access to its nearby mountain resorts and leisure parks and a variety of attractions for children, adrenalin sports for the young (e.g. bike parks), and relaxation zones. Regarding accommodation possibilities, TMR focuses primarily on four-star hotels and improvement of their wellness and dining services. Other strategic steps include focus on affluent clientele, essential quality of management and staff, and a sophisticated marketing strategy. Another key to TMR’s growth is innovation. In regards to that, TMR acts as the trendsetter in tourism. The loyalty program GOPASS enables its customers to shop online or via a mobile app and to collect points in its facilities by using its services and pay bargain prices, and at the same time, GOPASS serves as TMR’s Customer Relationship Management and Direct Marketing tool. This loyalty program was awarded in 2015 at The Loyalty Awards in London, where it won in categories: the Best loyalty programme of the year in the travel sector (airlines, hotels, destinations); the Best loyalty programme of the year in Central and Eastern Europe; and the Best Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in a loyalty programme for Direct Marketing. Within this pillar TMR fully utilizes synergic effects among its segments and subsegments, thus it is able to constantly optimize services it provides, as well as to keep expanding its variety of products and services, e.g. an option to use services of several mountain resorts and the aquapark with purchase of just one ticket.
The primary vision of TMR was revival of the High and the Low Tatras. The reason behind this vision was overall underdevelopment and very limited infrastructure regarding tourism in the region. Thanks to incremental consolidation of unique assets and as a result of intensive investments aimed at development and enhancement of these assets, and tourism in the region, TMR reached its goal and this vision became a reality. Due to greater attractiveness of the mountain resorts, number of visitors in the High Tatras resorts – Tatranská Lomnica and Starý Smokovec, Štrbské Pleso, and in Jasná Nízke Tatry increased significantly. As a direct consequence of TMR’s initiatives, tourism in the region as such recorded more positive results. The initial phase of investment strategy in the Tatras was completed in 2012/13, with benefits in the form of increasing number of visitors and revenues continually being reflected on the Company results and expected also in the upcoming years.