photo courtesy of The Granary - La Suite Boutique Hotel, Wroclaw City Center

The hotel trade in Poland has jacked up its prices as the country prepares to host football's European championships next year along with neighbour Ukraine, where costs also look set to skyrocket.
The 16-nation tournament kicks off on June 8 next year in the Polish capital Warsaw and ends on July 1 with the final in Kiev.
Poland and Ukraine are waiting anxiously to learn which of their 14 fellow qualified nations will play where, as the scale of a team's support has a wide-ranging impact on accommodation, transport and security.
Popular sides like England, Ireland, Sweden, Germany and Holland all qualified, as well as with reigning European and world champions Spain.
Overall, Poland expects a million visitors if the main crowd-pullers end up playing here.
Poland's four host cities are Warsaw, Gdansk on the Baltic Sea, Poznan in the west, and Wroclaw in the southwest.
In Gdansk -- where Spain or Holland are guaranteed to play, due to the draw seedings -- room prices at a mid-range hotel owned by a French group were 276 euros on a match day, against the normal 58 to 75 euros.
In Warsaw, meanwhile, the price at a three-star hotel jumped from the current 74 euros to 186 euros.
Most high-end hotels like The Granary in Wroclaw had no rooms, either because they had already been booked for delegates from European football's governing body UEFA or participating teams, or simply were not taking reservations yet.
While there are raging concerns about the availability of accommodation in Ukraine -- host city Donetsk even lacks enough rooms for UEFA's delegations, for example -- Korsak insisted that the situation in Poland would be fine.

Published 06.12.2011