Hotel Holiday Inn Express Tbilisi is a project of Avlabari Faseuli real estate development company Simetria. Its implementation started in 2016, with direct investments attracted from Kazakhstan. The hotel is located in the center of Avlabri, in the old and attractive part of Tbilisi for tourists: where history meets modernity.

The hotel has 122 rooms of standard category, which allows to accommodate up to 250 guests. Focused on the middle-income segment, Holiday Inn Express Tbilisi Avlabari is built on the bed & breakfast concept. Its rooms cater to both leisure and business visitors. The hotel combines multipurpose conference spaces designed for small and relatively large events for up to 100 people.

Holiday Inn Express is one of the brands of the international company InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). In Georgia, it is managed by Hotel Collection International Georgia, a member of Capitol Management.

Implementation of the project

At various stages of project implementation, Capitol Real Estate has overcome significant challenges:

• purchased land from 17 individuals and signed an agreement with the City Hall;
• Although it was not possible to attract investments at the initial stage, the company started preparatory works on the land;
• Due to a lawsuit filed by one of the neighbors, the construction was completely stopped in 2017-2019, which created a significant difference of opinion with the partner investor;
• After the successful conclusion of the court dispute, the start of the hotel construction was followed by a pandemic, which completely changed the market: actual revenues and their forecast decreased, and costs increased;
• Despite these challenges, construction did not stop. The hotel was opened 5 months later than planned, and despite inflation in the region exceeding 40%, the project was only 4% short of the agreed budget in 2016.

Results of the project

During its one-year operation, the hotel served 28,938 visitors, and 93.3% of them rated this experience positively. In 2023, the hotel won the Holiday Inn Express 2023 Guest Love Top Performer award of the region.

Expected results during project planning were as follows:

• Internal rate of return on equity (IRR Equity - monthly basis) — 15.3%;
• Internal rate of return on the project (IRR Project) — 13.5%;
• Return on equity (ROE) — 12.5%.