Serbia’s MK Mountain Resort plans to spend 3.5 million euro ($4.52 million) on the revamp of its hotel and holiday apartment complex in local ski resort Kopaonik through 2012, bringing total investment in the property to 12 million euro, Belgrade-based media reported.

The company, part of agricultural conglomerate MK Group, expects to recoup the investment in eight years, news broadcaster b92 (www.b92.net) reported, quoting MK Mountain Resort CEO, Nikola Avram, as saying over the weekend.

A consortium of MK Group and Austria's Falkensteiner Michaeler Tourism Group bought Hotel Grand and the Apartmani Konaci holiday apartment complex in central Serbia from local bankrupt group Genex in 2008 for 23 million euro.

The apartment complex registered about 8,500 overnights in May and June, a gain of around 30% from the same period last year, Avram said, adding that the growth is an upshot of improved service and pricing adjustments. Foreign tourists book roughly 600 of the overnights.

The company's vision for the Kopaonik ski resort is for it to become a part of a regional tourist offer following the European Union’s scrapping of visas for Serbian citizens in December.

The prices at the Kopaonik ski resort are lower than those in Austrian and Slovenian counterparts but higher than those offered by tourist centres in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria, Avram added.

MK Group, owned by Serbian tycoon Miodrag Kostic, comprises 16 companies employing 3,000 people. The group is active in the production of sugar, farming produce, pesticides and trade in agricultural goods.