Dirk Iserlohe, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Honestis AG, who continues to fight tirelessly for "his" Dorint Hotels and for the entire industry, also has fine antennae. After work, he sets about doing what others are paid to do full-time. After 130 letters to politicians (since corona virus), lawsuits and smouldering legal proceedings about the compensation for the damage caused by Covid-19, compensation that government promised but has never been received, I asked him who of his hotelier colleagues had explicitly thanked him for his commitment since 2020. His response: just one.
Iserlohe, himself a trained banker, is not giving up, knowing full well that the Dorint Group and its investors will once again have to save themselves. Dorint employees roll up their sleeves again and focus. If anyone in Germany can handle a crisis, it is this group.
There is movement in the market, everywhere. That's why I spontaneously took a snapshot with Heidi Schmidtke, the hotel expert from JLL Hotels & Hospitality: the conversion from office to hotel doesn't always work, southern hotels are performing better, takeovers are preventing insolvencies, and there is a new but not yet popular trend towards different uses in one building.
The multiple crises are finding their first victims, such as the small arcona Hotels group, which has filed for insolvency under self-administration. We have updated our breaking news from Monday. This family-run company will do everything it can to keep the hotels and employees, remains humble and works hand in hand with the insolvency administrator.
The other side of the crisis coin knows no such humility: All that counts is money, profit and benefits. The REIT behind the British budget chain Travelodge is currently selling half of its hotels because they represent a greater value than other asset types during the crisis. Irony of fate: Travelodge itself is for sale.
Numa also benefits from venture capitalists: This is why the serviced apartment provider has just acquired its Dutch rival Yays. This way, Numa is driving volume, but is it also driving quality?
The crisis crown has so far been worn by Choice: CEO Pat Pacious is already canvassing Wyndham shareholders and interviewing candidates for his board. But nothing has yet moved between the parties. This is the psychological warfare in a crisis.
In other news, three wellness professionals asked around 150 wellness businesses in German-speaking Europe and South Tyrol what their plans for the future are. Conclusion: They don’t have any. They simply do not draw conclusions from cost increases and changes in customer behaviour. Indifference is also a form of denial of reality.
And an interesting piece of news from our personnel department: An interesting piece of personnel news: Walter Neumann will become CEO of the umbrella organisation The Grand Metropolitan Hotels, founded in 2022, with Martin Smura as Chairman; many people only know this name from his short time as Kempinski CEO. This group with many small and unknown hotels is to be given a new profile. From the News Mix: Belmond's parent company LVMH is reportedly investing up to 100 million for a hotel on Lake Como.
From the Public Content: the hotel with recycled rooms, the most innovative countries, Adina's Hotel Lab in Berlin, Aareal financing for The Social Hub, Premier Inn's Net Zero ambitions and the healthy balance sheet of the Italian HNH Group.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
Editor-in-Chief