Editorial
Dear Insiders,
If there is one image of political arrogance, it was encapsulated in the demeanor Angela Merkel as she announced the extension of the lockdown in Germany late on Wednesday night, albeit with initial, incremental easing. With the deepest contempt towards tourism and the hotel industry, the iron chancellor didn’t say the word "hotel" even once during the hour-long press conference. Why? Mobility is precisely what she doesn’t want and she aims to suppress and prohibit any inkling of it - no matter what the cost.
Just on time for each cabinet meeting, the infection and/or death rate rise, and the day after, virologists loyal to the chancellor like Christian Drosten stir up even more fear, this time because of the British mutations. Yes, a balancing act is what's called for. The public know that best. The lockdown has given everybody plenty of free time to watch talk shows, read the newspaper, debate and analyse. And they’re now fed up of being treated with contempt, being lied to, and locked up at home. The vast majority of people are prepared to take responsibility - even when eating in restaurants and hotels.
Infections, r-rates, hygiene rules, vaccination offers, vaccination deliveries, vaccination promises, the promise of quick provision of rapid tests - nothing fits together logically anymore in this Germany 2021. And above all: Politicians do not keep their promises. And with that, all credibility is lost.
The new phased plan is a difficult-to-understand creation of ifs and buts from which only a new patchwork of chaos can emerge, with the rules differing from region to region. Only vaccination and testing will stop a possible third wave. Yet the government is simply unable to provide tests up to now. All the more astounding then, that the discounter Aldi does: 5 tests for 25 Euro are available for everyone on Saturday, throughout the whole of Germany!
What really is a bitter pill to swallow is the contempt for hotels. Forgotten and despised, they've been overlooked and given no perspective whatsoever for the umpteenth time. If only the financial support payments would arrive, but not even that. And so it becomes a race with insolvency and for employees.
Our edition today: The German Corona Warning app has failed, but not before costing the taxpayer €63 million. The new app Luca - which we present to you in detail today - costs almost nothing, is free for hoteliers and guests to download and overcomes all previous digital hurdles up to the link with the health offices. Sounds good. The first Minister President is already implementing the tool.
After all, the desire to travel does not diminish. This is why many hotel groups want to expand further. Marcus Bernhardt, CEO Deutsche Hospitality for four months now, explains precisely in an interview with me why the IPO is not yet coming as quickly as some media stated that it would and why he is basing the brands on a platform economy. He will also take a closer look at his hotel owners in the future: Many large institutional players have simply been too arrogant for him in lease discussions.
$100 billion is what Airbnb is worth on the stock market today. A lot of money for a start-up whose founder Brian Chesky recently raised $3.5 billion this way.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
"Here rests a tourist business". This is the phrase across a poster commissioned by the hotel association of the Baltic Sea island of Usedom. Positioned on the poster under a picture of a cross, in which the dreamlike sandy beach in the sunset is immortalised. This motif precisely reflects the current, anguished mood that prevails at least in Germany and Austria. People want out - and they are indeed going out, as the images of crowded city-centres and local tourist spots showed last weekend.
The streets are full. Hotels and restaurants though will probably remain closed for longer. Yet hairdressers and DIY stores will be allowed to open on Monday. Meanwhile, even the Robert Koch Institute says in its current strategy paper that this sector is not a driver of infection.
The response simply doesn't fit with the evidence. Injustice and disproportionality can no longer be explained logically. The falling, stagnating and then slowly rising numbers are also unintelligible to the public. And so measurement criteria have once again been changed.
Politicians feel the public's restlessness, but they must hold firm for longer, because that's what they do - think too late, act too late, overreact too late, overdiscuss too late, and then ultimately mess up the vaccine purchases: A civil servant again holds the reins here. Why not get a professional on board like Boris Johnson did?
Our media landscape is a headline circus this week, and reflects the confusion exactly - adding to the frustration of hotel groups: Despite all the announcements, financial support payments are still not flowing, or at best only in dribs and drabs. This is active euthanasia for the hotel industry and the tourist sector, tolerated by the Christian and social parties.
Because the vultures are circling, discussions are piling up within the hotel and real estate industry about how to convert hotels in the future. Beatrix Boutonnet shows today how difficult that can be. Often it fails already at construction details, but also at discrepancies in price expectations that currently persist. The latter is also reflected in JLL's global investment analysis.
The impending doom is countered in the most blatant form by people's desire to travel: "They're sitting on packed suitcases," say the latest market research figures from Vienna yesterday... If you can make it to Milan, why not check out the Benetton brothers' latest hotel? 21WOL mixes trends, brands and categories.
The balance sheets of the global chains today with their sometimes billion-dollar losses are also clear: The sector is bleeding. It’s nailed to the cross. Sacrificed. The day after tomorrow, on 28 February, it will be exactly one year since ITB 2020 was cancelled.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
Today, we take a look at testing methods: spitting, swabbing, sampling. And we certainly won't be picking our noses in boredom. The Austrians are already committed to large-scale testing, with success. Every second hotel would set up its own test corridor. In the meantime the government has allowed all companies to have their own test corridors.
Without testing and vaccination, there will be no more travel and normal daily life. That's for sure. Switzerland has also given priority to testing; the canton of Graubünden has launched a major pilot for 20,000 people.
And the Germans? Now that the government has announced that it will allow rapid and self-testing on a large scale from 1 March, the authorities are already complaining about their next logistics problem.
Fred Fettner looked at the Austrian successes and the next plans, Macy Marvel concentrated on pandemic measures in Switzerland - in conversation with Andreas Züllig, President of Hotelleriesuisse. "The Swiss way is the right way," Züllig stated with complete conviction. The Swiss hoteliers I interviewed gave the association good marks, but they all described the snails-pace approach of politicians as disastrous. Financial support has not been available to hotel groups there either, but open hotels and white slopes make guests happy. They just want to get out of the doldrums, no one complains about restrictions, spa registrations and mask checks.
Without foreign tourists, Austria is lost; and it's a similar story in other countries. That is why the borders must stay open, the virus must be fought and the political interventions must be corrected!
Wide awake and legally versed entrepreneurs like Dirk Iserlohe obviously notice tiny legislative changes faster than entire industry associations. He noticed that the German Ministry of Economic Affairs was not using EU funds correctly and in full. The Germans have been applying the wrong EU provision thus far it seems: Brussels has not set down limits for Bridging Aid III - but rather Germany is keeping the lid on things! This really is scandalous. It means that fewer companies will benefit from aid that they are absolutely entitled to receive.
An insubstantial mistake with substantial consequences? The Ministry of Economics has already - quietly at least - reacted, as Iserlohe found out yesterday through a call at top EU level: Berlin has retrospectively removed the caps for November and December - but not yet publicly announced the move. So why isn't that also available from January 2021?
We are not the only ones watching politics today, others are too: A scientific study undertaken by the TU Berlin is able to show clearly why a restaurant is not a virus hotbed. And the latest protest action by 19 Sylt hoteliers and colleagues shows just how urgent things are: They have established their own - functioning - "Corona" app and have started building rapid tests... If the next wave comes, it won't be the fault of such entrepreneurs.
Hyatt, Marriott and Scandic are of course struggling with corona, as their 2020 results show, but the rest of our reports on real estate, markets, digital and robotics trends contain as little corona as possible.
Hang in there, ask questions, follow up! It's vital for survival.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
Everybody is silent. They are agonising over the most recent interim aids, quietly checking how much is left on their accounts and fear daily for their existence. The associations utter a few words of outrage, but otherwise? Have any measures been taken? Any fighting back? Are they getting loud? Yesterday, a tourism politician asked me, why no one in Berlin knew the important hotel groups and the brains behind them.
To make sure the industry is heard again, I spontaneously interviewed Dirk Iserlohe, as he talks plainly after the most recent disaster called Ueberbrueckungshilfe III interim aid: The failure of the current entrepreneurs is expected... We are collateral damage ... We have been tricked, he accuses politicians. Read the crisp interview on our page 1 and please share it with your friends and opponents in politics.
Almost every conversation I've had in the past three weeks began or ended with the phrase: "I don’t want anymore, either." Not only do these words express the nerve-wracking tension of entrepreneurs, but above all they show the desire for a real, honest roadmap. Governments are not giving hoteliers an opening perspective because they lack all practical reference. Therefore, even after 12 months, they still don't know which aids truly help hoteliers.
The other way round, as professional hosts, you know very well how to implement the health rules – they have been well-prepared for a long time. Now they just need quick test runs. You should demand them! They are the only way out of the rigour and into controlled mobility. Lifestyle hotel variety, food and drinks are, after all, part of well-being in our lives, not just haircuts.
The analyses of 2020 from a tourism and hotel perspective are reflected in several news today – concrete figures and comparisons included. This spring will be an even bigger drama than the one in 2020.
To cheer you up today, we've got a few crazy wellness trends from the US as well as an interesting article on the upcoming initial virtual ITB in Berlin. Who will "be going"? As always, there are the convinced visitors, but there are also many who shy away from the anonymity and high prices attached to an online presence. The world's largest tourism trade show is turning into the world's largest PR event. Because the format is not suitable for serious business. The first ITB on screen is currently the biggest experiment in global tourism marketing.
It is essential to save tourism in 2021. This is the cause taken up by Pierre & Vacances Center Parcs, Europe's largest leisure provider. It is right, as the company also wants to save its 45,800 holiday apartments and homes from the home-made financial crisis. Franck Gervais, formerly Accor, is to clear the 350 million euro mountain of debt. Sarah Douag delved deep into the strategy so far.
Dear hoteliers, if you continue to be silent, you will continue not to be taken seriously and you will be tricked. Today is Friday. Let yourself be inspired and re-think your own role in the market and how you want to make sure the industry will speak with a louder voice in the future.
And finally, something new on our page 1: Loss of turnover in the pandemic makes rent and lease payments an ongoing issue. The contracting parties have to negotiate solutions. For a free initial assessment from a legal perspective, the lawyers of the Munich law firm GvW Graf von Westphalen have created a tool with which you can check your rent and lease reductions online. Launch the banner here on our homepage.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
Israel and Dubai are on their way back to everyday life, thanks to extensive vaccination efforts. Sylvie Konzack kept her ears open there and recognises: Rapid tests are likewise an important part on the path towards a revitalised economy. But the truth is also this: "Everyone follows the rules without discussions," says an Austrian citizen in Dubai.
In Central Europe, testing still remains a difficult topic at the moment. But why? I was really annoyed when I listened to an economist this week who showed that every nation-wide planned and consequently carried out testing strategy would only cost a fraction of the 750-billion-euro structure package drafted by the EU.
And even worse: If one sticks to the current strategy, a new third lockdown could loom after Easter. The Institute for the German Economy supports the test strategy: otherwise a week of standstill like the first lockdown will cost the German economy ten billion euros per week.
But who thinks about the population? For two weeks now, plans about a "No-Covid strategy" or "Zero Covid strategy" have been circulating in Germany: in the end, these are all plans to gradually reactivate the currently closed industries. What happens? Three federal states join in – and all of them define their own incidence thresholds. Again, there is ZERO consensus. Therefore, we will have 16 different models in the 16 federal states soon. The state premiers are repeating their mistakes from the accommodation ban, which, last October, led to hysteria, trade fair cancellations and the next lockdown – and the lockdown is still in place to this very day. Virus eats brain.
Therefore, I prefer stalwart CEOs. They seemingly have to be born with foresight and a change in thinking in order to lead their hotel groups out of the crisis. "We all have to think in new ways," says Stefan Leser, CEO of the Asian Langham Hospitality Group for two years now. So far, the group has always been profitable and has started a shopping spree in the middle of the crisis: Europe is a white spot on Langham's map. However, luxury can only be maintained with good staff members. Therefore, Leser commutes between hardware and software and asks himself – and his colleagues – in the luxury segment self-critically: "Did the hotel fulfil its purpose or did we only sugarcoat it?"
Today's edition sways between various perspectives: Amongst others, travellers reveal where they want to travel to this year in Europe; and by way of contrast to that, individual countries sway back and forth between opening and closing, following the motto: Do we travel to Italy or France to go to the hairdresser?
Whether travellers are going to leave classical booking channels à la Booking.com for the benefit of local channels remains unclear after analysing a platform and asking two experts. In any case, the holiday hotels are preparing themselves – therefore, Falkensteiner presents a new family-only hotel in South Tyrol whose features include an all-year "ski slope" that spreads out across the building's entire roof! A new superlative and super expensive.
And we sway back again to the sobriety of everyday life. A new ruling of the Regional Court of Munich again creates different precedents than the last ruling: In future, operators are to save up huge reserves and finance every crisis themselves.
It simply remains amusing. Like in kindergarten.
On our own behalf: Preparations for Expo Real 2021 have begun. Those who would like to exhibit at the World of Hospitality joint stand should apply for their requirements now. The registration is preliminary and only used to determine the space requirements. Contact Michael Willems and Anne Greisel please.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
Individual countries are already in the process of closing their borders – and this time the airports as well. The virus mutations must stay out. And even more so as there is not enough vaccine anywhere. Particularly not in the chaos of Germany. We are about to lose our good image.
The mismanagement of the pandemic, however, does not keep people from thinking intensely about travelling as analyses show – even after the horrors of 2020, which caused 11 times more damage to tourism than the Lehman crash in 2009.
At this new brink of panic it is about time to think in a radical way. To rethink. How should we deal with our clingy friend Covid? How can we live freely again? 13 experts and consultants have developed a NO-Covid strategy, for Angela Merkel. The goal: Pushing incidences to ZERO and creating virus-free zones – "green zones” – closed off and rigorously controlled, of course, "only" for a few weeks ...
The idea sounds convincing and the Chancellor thinks it's a good one, too. But will it be well received in the midst of the misery? Amid the struggle for survival of hotels whose coffers are empty? And at the emotional low point of the people who are psychologically at the end of their tether after more than three months? We have shed light on it and Professor Christian Buer comments.
And promptly, another federal state comes around the corner with its own anti-Covid method. Schleswig-Holstein is pushing ahead and would already declare a city or a region "green” at an incidence of 35. These ego trips are really unbearable.
When will Germany finally come to a national solution? When will the EU finally come to a uniform one? The USA and China are big enough to recover from their own domestic market. But for Central Europe, it is all about the EU, including Switzerland. If you block the borders, you block the domestic economy and kill yourself. Actionism over ratio, the mistakes repeat themselves after 12 months.
We’re providing some help today. Apart from uniformity, you can fight the virus with technology: with high-performance filters, reliable quick tests, with tags that can detect virus spread in gastro/hotel rooms. There are innovations that even politicians haven't heard about yet. We explain why these are so important and introduce you to three inventions – available for all to read in front of our paywall. Because this knowledge counts NOW and should be used.
Sarah Douag has intensively analysed the consequences Brexit will have for the hotel industry. At the moment, Covid-19 is drawing all the attention, but hotel managers need to look across the Thames and the Channel towards Europe. Risks and opportunities are apparent. Wyndham, IHG, Colliers and others on post-Brexit travel.
Our news mostly revolve around the EU subsidies for the large, affiliated companies, which the EU even topped up yesterday afternoon. German hotel managers are nevertheless reticent. Switzerland was also happy about more aid, but just as much about a changed test strategy that should lead out of the crisis.
HospitalityInside, like many people and hoteliers, hopes for more relaxed months that allow personal contacts again. That is why we are pushing our Think Tank from June to 13/14 September. Since the Corona requirements limit a presence on our previous event ship in Berlin, we have decided on Munich! "On land" we can welcome up to 50 people physically under Corona conditions - and the whole world virtually as well!
Please note the date and the topic: SUSTAINABILITY & DIGITALISATION: THE CHANGE DRIVERS. The Decade of Action: How Sustainability leads the agenda, how Digitalisation enables it. I am sure: This topic fits fantastically into this year! Detailed information coming soon.
Keep reading HospitalityInside! It's worth it.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
The reckoning with politics in the article by Alexander Fitz of H-Hotels last Friday was followed by many comments, also on LinkedIn. Nonetheless, there are still people who discredit hoteliers as cry-babies. Today, we will provide these people with a few facts – not from a hotel operator, but from hotel investor Dr. Joerg Haas from Bonn, who himself owns 5 hotels, 12 catering businesses, 2 conference centres and 5 fitness studios. His group is also suffering massively. Therefore, he decided to disclose every single failed measure using his own company’s figures.
His disastrous experience with the financial aids is symbolic of all major groups and companies. It is a disaster that could well be used as a blueprint for a Netflix show … After all, this disaster turns 2020 from a 5-million-euro profit into a 16-million-euro loss for Haas' Invite Group.
We will publish this article in front of the paywall today, as we want these figures to be etched on the memories of incompetent politicians. Please distribute this article across all your channels, particularly to the representative in your constituency who will soon cross your path and encounter your unemployed former staff members on the street.
In our article on the lockdown extensions in Germany and Austria, we will take another look at the financial aids that will once again fail to save any larger group or company. Small, debt-free family hotels will likely survive thanks to corona aids while the internationally competitive, high-quality, creative and professional city hotel sector is dangling over the precipice. After all, medium-sized and large chains are still those who accommodate the majority of corporate travellers and MICE visitors!
Central Europe should watch out: Other countries are already overtaking the region. In Dubai, Emirates Airlines has already vaccinated the crews this week; two hotel groups have also already vaccinated their employees and family members. They are getting their vaccinations done in record-time – because they want to enable travel again. They go for BUSINESS!
And what about big Germany? Complains and keeps on babbling. Economically, Central Europe will fall massively behind, even in comparison to smaller but more decisive and purposefully acting countries. Competition is now being decided via vaccination strategies.
Today, Richard Adam, who is known as a very critical tourism expert to our readers, is holding up the mirror to the cumbersome and sated destination managers: "Shutdown of the old marketing" simply is a must-read.
Concerning Kempinski Hotels, I cannot give you much news five weeks after the dismissal of the CEO: The lawyers are currently preoccupied with the era of Martin Smura. It remains exciting.
With these reports and other colourful news about the market, we say goodbye until next week, the last one in January. At the end of January in 2020, the first Covid-19 cases emerged in Italy.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
For those who work, the comfortable part of lockdown is already over. All the statements in today's edition point in the same direction: 2021 will be a turbulent year. The buzzwords will be known to you from the headline bombardments: Mutations, vaccines, lockdown extensions, immigration rules... We dig deeper, asking 15 CEOs and top executives from leading chains and smaller groups what demands they have made of policymakers in the current corona mess. Many responded succinctly in imperatives, others expressed frustration in longer statements.
To give you all little foretaste, check out the freely available article on our page 1: Alexander Fitz, CEO of H-Hotels, has sharp criticism for unfair lockdowns, November lies, zero financial aid as well as for ignorant and incompetent politicians. He talks of complete political failure.
The others also speak plainly in our magazine article: "Politicians should finally keep their promises," Motel One demands. "Set clear rules!" demands Premier Inn. Falkensteiner wants antigen testing... The lists of demands are long, the justifications sharp. The comments reflect the chaos surrounding the management of the pandemic.
Fitz packs it into this comparison: "On 27 December, we finally received EUR 10,000 as a down payment for the November aid promised. That's just EUR 83.45 less than the monthly salary of a member of the Bundestag."
Incompetence will become visible - in insolvencies. Our specialist lawyers, who were reluctant to sound the alarm in October, now leave no doubt that even large groups are on very thin ice. Why? The government's law reforms have only increased the confusion. The lockdown continues mercilessly, but the financial support payments promised have not yet been made. This will now drive insolvencies. And it's not me saying that, it's the lawyers!
Vienna House, our exclusive today, has already hit the emergency stop: CEO Rupert Simoner will sell 22 lease hotels to a German and an Austrian hotel investor and operator: High debts would deprive the group of any flexibility and creativity for the next few years.
If there is one "consolation" for frustrated German hoteliers, it is to look to neighbouring European countries. The update from our correspondents for Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands and France really is depressing. In hard-pressed Italy, politicians offer tax giveaways in an era of zero revenues... Barcelona, meanwhile, expects 30% of its hotels to close for good... Read what's happened since Christmas.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel has once again become an awful lot longer. Our only hope of coming through it is the vaccine.
In all the corona misery this week, at least the impeachment of Donald Trump was a silver lining - an omen that every form of evil can be defeated.
Given such reality dramas, HospitalityInside, at least, is more motivated than ever to do its bit in battling the fake news in 2021. We prefer to talk to you directly and not through the Dark Net.
And I also had a "conversation" with my fellow editor-in-chief Andrew Sangster from Hotel Analyst: Listen in to our podcast about Brexit and the virus. Here’s the direct link!
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
The lockdown in large parts of Europe over Christmas and New Year will go unnoticed by many: They will sleep, go on walks, and try to forget. Fresh air helps to reduce stress hormones just as body tapping regulates the emotions. These are just two tips from a psychologist who tells executives today how to manage their stress levels in the wake of corona. Bärbel Schwertfeger, who interviewed her, is also a psychology graduate.
Satya Anand, President EMEA at Marriott since November, has been feeling more relaxed since the vaccine was announced: "People will travel again in June," he's convinced. He remains an optimist, even if the pandemic has placed the world's largest hotel chain before existential challenges. But business continues, with rigorous cost adjustments and small successes in operations, all step by step.
Airbnb meanwhile appears to have seven-league boots on. The IPO last week put the company's market capitalisation at USD 100 billion. The share is valued higher than that of Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt combined. The company is today worth billions, but it still has nothing in the bank. That really is crazy. And if that's not enough, stock market "analysts" are stylising the bloated mattress company as tourism's saviour, as Sarah Doug reports.
It's always worth taking a closer look: A lawyer sheds light on the announced change in the law as regards Germany statutory rules on interference with the basis of the business transaction. The amendment finally promises German tenants/leaseholders more rights in discussions with owners. Italian hoteliers would like similar recognition of their hardships - and are also calling for government to recognise their plight. Hoteliers on the Canary Islands see few prospects and little more in the way of a helping hand from the state: They give up and consign the winter season to the dustbin.
The state is not always the perfect solution. And so hoteliers report why they - unlike Novum Hospitality - do not want a loan from the German economic stabilisation fund. They demand solid compensation: But the government has not indicated on the new "vouchers" for further extended aid programmes which it has carefully placed under the Christmas tree when exactly they may be redeemed.
Accordingly, many people's nerves are being strained towards the end of the year. In the emotional ups and downs, hoteliers soberly comment on their chances of survival. Others plan further court action: After the Federal Constitutional Court rejected the arguments of six hoteliers alleging unlawful violations of basic rights, Rolf Seelige-Steinhoff, hotel entrepreneur from Usedom, and his colleagues are now set to issue further claims before the lower courts.
Only in the Serviced Apartment world is there light on the horizon, just as the EU tries to rein in the internet giants.
A lot of comments, sober as well as emotional, were received this week for our coverage of Kempinski Hotels since our reporting last Friday and via Breaking News on Monday. It feels good when quality journalism is appreciated. It provides a boost for 2021.
HospitalityInside will stay true to its line, will seek out the debate and bring creative and open minds together. For your calendar: Our HITT Think Tank 2021 will take place on 21/22 June, as a virtual/hybrid event, this time focusing on "Digitalisation & Sustainability". In addition, a number of new projects are already well under way.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them," said Albert Einstein. We agree. We simply think afresh, together with you. And trust in the future.
Dear Readers, Dear Business Partners - we thank you very much for 2020 - for everything. Stay healthy!
We’ll be back in the New Year with our first edition of 2021 on 15 January. The office will be open from 11 January.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
& the entire hospitalityInside team
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
Exhausted hoteliers, wailing employees, helpless CFOs and exasperated CEOs... Financial aid is still not forthcoming and now, in December, salaries can no longer be paid in time for Christmas. These are the images that now pop up. Ten months after the first infections, the virus is cutting swathes through society - medically, mentally and in very real terms. At the same time, everyone expects the first wave of economic deaths. But these statistics won’t be beamed into our living rooms. After all, there will be no graves to be dug for them.
Lockdown, lockdown, lock them down... The chaotic strategies pursued by governments have now fallen into a rhythm: Christmas, New Year's Eve, skiing and family visits are all off the agenda. Curfews are to hold the virus away from the Christmas tree. And if infection rates skyrocket again after that. What then? Lockdown number four?
A Paris court has rejected the reopening of restaurants and cafés after using data from a study in the US to evaluate cases in France. A scandal. On 14 December, restaurant owners are set to fill the streets in protest. Dutch hoteliers meanwhile talk about being held hostage, Sarah Douag writes, following the latest decisions there. And in Italy the government is restricting almost all movement from now until 15 January. The Italians don't even dare to rebel, says Massimiliano Sarti. Corona has worn them down.
We've 10 months of experience with the pandemic now, and it is time to hand over responsibility to the citizen, comments Ingo Peters today, Director of Fairmont Vier Jahreszeiten Hamburg, quoted in our article about luxury hotel groups under corona. During the four summer months, he generated super revenues. After Christmas, he will shut up the iconic hotel on Hamburg’s Alster lake, at least until the end of January. And all completely without prospect: "I feel like I've had limbs removed."
Marc Dardenne, COO of the Accor Luxury Division, to which Fairmont belongs, is also feeling the the ups and downs of closures - across all countries. Only Food & Beverage, spas and passionate service can help to achieve short-term success... He wants his GMs to think like entrepreneurs.
The road to success for luxury hotels is still rocky and long, as well as for conference hotels that will be left waiting for MICE business to return for some time yet. Yoram Biton, Managing Director of Leonardo Hotels Central Europe, speaks openly today about the challenges he faces with over 80 hotels in the classic midscale and upscale segment. Intense communication with customers can save room rates. With owners he can become stubborn: He refuses to accept mere deferrals of rent - at least that’s what he says. And because politicians don’t help, he has taken his fate into his own hands.
Kempinski Hotels’ path is not the easiest either. The expansion, announced with great fanfare recently, has run into trouble, and according to our information, CEO Martin Smura must rescind the deal with strategic partner 12.18. At the same time, he wants to manage three top Dorint hotels in future. But even that has its pitfalls. We have background information on the headlines and on the silent changes.
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
Editor-in-chief
Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com