Wizz Air announced that it would enter the Serbian market by opening two new routes from Belgrade, as early as Summer 2010. The initial network will include services toDortmund and London Luton from 12 June and 24 July respectively.

Gyorgy Abran, Chief Commercial Officer of Wizz Air said: “We are delighted to extend our service offering to the Serbian passengers, who can now enjoy our low fares coupled with excellent travel experience all along their journey. Wizz Air has been proving its commitment to the region by opening new bases and routes and growing the fleet of our brand new Airbus A320 airplanes. The Serbian market has a good development potential and we are looking forward to exploit it. We look forward working together with all parties to address the regulatory constraints and cost of logistics in order to unleash the full growth potential Wizz could deliver.”

Velimir Radosavljevic, General Manager of Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade said: “Considering that the strategic orientation for the Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport is to recognize and meet the demands of our users, whether passengers or airlines, it is my pleasure to announce that we have succeeded to bring to Serbia yet another low cost airline, to the benefit of Serbian citizens.

At the same time, and co-operating with the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development and the Tourist Organization of Serbia, we would like to have as many foreign tourists as possible. It is our wish for Belgrade and Serbia to be recognized as a destination offering a new picture of hospitality, and able to meet the wishes and needs of different categories of our foreign guests.

Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport will do anything – and as we can see in the past couple of months, on the average, one airline per month is arriving – to open the market and make free competition possible. We wish to make air travel readily available to our citizens: in this way we also make it possible for them to join the family of European nations.”

I would like to welcome W!zz Air saying that we are the most promising Airport in the Central and Eastern Europe, and I would like to tell to our citizens: You asked for it – fly!

Slovakia has abundant cultural and historical, fortified and stately buildings. There are more than 100 castles and at least double this number of manor houses built in different historical eras. In the past, they were the protagonists of history and their owners controlled the life of the country and its people. Every manor house area also had a garden or park. The curias once owned by petty gentry, can be seen in almost every village in Slovakia.

Read more about Castles in Slovakia

Join us on a tour to the most wonderful castles through Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, including Schonbrunn in Vienna, Wawel in Krakow, Krasna Horka Slovakia. Read more…

It’s been snowing. Other things may have happened but nobody can be sure since these things have immediately been buried under six feet of icy precipitation. There are strange humpy white shapes scattered all over the country that may or may not conceal fascinating news stories. For now, Poland’s television news programmes are left with two alternatives: extreme close-ups of politicians being duplicitous or stories about snow. They have mostly gone with the snow or, where possible, extreme close-ups of politicians lying about snow.

Us Brits tend to believe the Poles must know what they are doing when it comes to near-Arctic winters. For no logical reason, most Britons assume Poland is more or less glacial all the time. I suspect this has more to do with vaguely recollected Cold War propaganda about the chilly discomfort of living behind the Iron Curtain than a firm grounding in the meteorology of continental climates. Even when we find out this is not strictly true, we still expect Poles to be able to handle blizzards and similar snow-related hazards without a whimper.

Castle in southern transdanubia, Hungary for sale. The asking price is 20.000.000 HUF (74000EUR).

The castle built in 1913 and come with a massive land of 28960 sqm. The castle itself is 583sqm.

The building need a restoration as it is empty for a long time. There is electricity. Perfect for a castle hotel or mansion.

A 34-year old Bulgarian woman was seriously injured in an avalanche close to the Banderitsa hut near the winter resort of Bansko in the Pirin mountain, the Mountain Rescue Service (MRS) said on January 30 2010.

The woman had head injuries, the MRS said. 

She had been part of a group which, at about 9am on January 30 2010, left the hut and headed to a nearby Palashitsa area.

Moments later, seven of the group were swept away by an avalanche. After the quick reaction by the PSS all were rescued. Apart from the woman, no one else was injured.

The incident comes a day after an avalanche caused the death of young snowboarder in Bansko and four days after another skier died after hitting a snow cornice on Bansko’s Alberto Tomba ski run.

The MRS said that there was a high risk of avalanches in all Bulgarian mountains because of the fresh snow which has fallen over the past few days. The low temperatures mixed with strong winds created a high risk of avalanches, the MRS said.

Lufthansa German Airlines continues to expand in Dusseldorf and will be offering new routes for summer 2010, including flights to Dubrovnik.

Flights to Dubrovnik will start on April 1st 2010 and the city will be connected to Dusseldorf with two weekly flights, on Thursdays and Saturdays.

“In the new timetable, we are offering our customers even more attractive destinations and non-stop connections,” Lufthansa stated.

Return flights with Lufthansa to all European destinations can be booked from EUR 99. The fare applies to flights in Economy Class and includes all taxes, charges and the Lufthansa Ticket Service Charge for flight reservations made online at www.lufthansa.com.

Miles & More earn mile credits on these flights.

AirBerlin announced that it will cancel all flights from Budapest Ferihegy Airport from 2010.  There were no flights to Budapest in the winter timetable, but flights won’t reopen in the summer either.

AirBerlin told that decision because of the low demand on the routes, they (or their other company Germanwings) fly to other destinations in central and eastern europe, like to Pristina or Constanza, Romania.

It is a major loss for the Budapest Airport as its lost several low cost airlines in the past, like Ryanair, Skyeurope. WizzAir and Easyjet’re still flying, although Easyjet passenger number also dropped from 700.000 in 2005 to below 500.000 in 2009. Budapest Airport had 1.990.000 passengers in 2009, that’s 200.000 lower than 2007.

Premium transaction yields are the highest in Budapest in the Visegrád Four countries, i.e. the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, CB Richard Ellis has said in a market report on Thursday. According to CBRE’s estimates, the spread between the yields in Budapest and Prague is around 100 basis points, while investors position Warsaw even higher.

Many European markets saw a rush of deals being completed towards year end. Overall, 17 out of the 26 markets monitored by CB Richard Ellis reported Q4 2009 as having the highest quarterly turnover of 2009. – it was revealed at the annual press conference of CBRE.

“As a result of increased investment volume in the mature western markets a positive impact in investor confidence within the CEE region has occurred, although when this actually happened is hard to pin point. Uncertainty over economic prospects in the region prevailed in the first half of the year meaning that many investors focused their attention elsewhere,” said Adrienne Konthur, Managing Director of CBRE Budapest.

“However, it is now clear that positive sentiment has returned, although investors are maintaining a very conservative approach,” she added.

European activity

Almost 40% of the annual turnover was realized in Q4. Traditionally, Q4 is the busiest quarter of the year, therefore seasonal effects have also played a part in these activity levels. Nevertheless, the trend is promising.

Although the total 2009 turnover of EUR 70 billion shows a significant decrease year-on-year compared to the volume of EUR 121 billion reported for 2008 as a whole, CBRE expects the European investment market to pick up on growth in 2010.

A very sharp turn-around in activity occurred in Europe during the course of 2009. Following a recovery in sentiment from around April, completed transactions picked up strongly from mid-year. Most notable was the fact that transactions in both France and Germany – the two largest markets in continental Europe – more than doubled in H2 compared to H1 2009.

Investment in the UK continued to increase, with H2 growth of 64% relative to H1 2009. This was below the European average, but reflects the fact that the UK market had already started to recover by the middle of the year, earlier than most other markets. CEE experienced a particularly sharp uplift in H2, but this was coming from a very low base.

“Although turnover increased by over 300% in the CEE region in H2 2009, the overall annual volume was down 75% when compared to the volumes of 2008. Within this increased turnover the core CE countries made up over 50% of the investment volume – a noteworthy increase compared to previous years,” commented Tim O’Sullivan, Head of Capital Markets of CBRE Budapest.

He added that CBRE estimates the transaction yield of premium property at 8.0% in Budapest, 7.5% in Bratislava, 7.0% in Prague and somewhat below 7.0% in Warsaw. CBRE does not expect substantial shifts in yields in the region in 2010.

CEE reviving

Local investors drove the CEE property investment market in 2009 to a greater extent than in recent years, as many who had been priced out in recent years took advantage of the retreat by international investors to make opportunistic purchases, mostly of non-prime properties. It remains to be seen whether local investors’ higher share of turnover will become a longer-term trend or if they just took a larger slice of a smaller investment pie in 2009, CBRE said.

“Hungarian investment volume in total reached around EUR 500 million in 2009 (with H2 having a 77% share in total). This figure includes purchases completed by owner occupier transactions. If we exclude these, the pure investment turnover stood at about EUR 260 m,” O’Sullivan said.

“For 2010, CBRE anticipates the turnover to reach around EUR 400mln of investment volume; reflecting a similar volume to that of 2009. The biggest bottleneck is the limited availability of the prime/core defensive stock which the international investor is seeking,” he concluded

“The buyers are there with money ready to spend – but only for the right opportunity.”

On the CEE occupational markets Gábor Borbély, Senior Analyst at CBRE Hungary commented: “Vacancy and rental pressure must be considered when purchasing a property as weaker economic performance made office take-up figures fall across the region. Vacancy rates are double-digit figures in every significant market but in Warsaw, and have been steadily rising for the last six quarters. Higher availability rates keep rental levels under attack and this is not going to ease any time soon in many markets.”

“As demand is likely to lag behind the average of the previous half decade, vacancy (and rental pressure) can be reduced only with absorbed oversupply. This is not going to be fast and will show different dynamism across different locations, depending whether the development wave has already passed in the individual cities.” Borbély added.

(portfolio.hu)