Editorial

Dear Insiders,
Real estate transactions are booming, also in Europe, as JLL today shows for the first half-year. And already, the next mega deals are on the horizon: The majority shareholder of B&B Hotels, Carlyle, wants to sell. The budget chain is doing well, and so Carlyle is looking to cash in. The same applies for Travelodge: A sale is being reviewed. For both, an initial public offer would also be nice idea. And for both, the Chinese could be interested too.
The new robot receptionists at the Henna-na Hotel Nagasaki look very human. They can also smile and talk. The hotel industry begins the next stage of automation.
And the hotel industry also takes the next step with OTAs. Google is already testing direct hotel bookings therefore making itself a direct competitor to Booking.com & Co. And the hotels are being squeezed like a lemon.
Electric cars and e-filling stations are no longer a thing of the future. Various hotel groups and hotels meanwhile offer their guests "juice" from the socket, or from their own solar roof panels. An e-car trade fair in autumn promises to help. Susanne Stauss has collected positive hotel examples for e-filling stations and has looked into the costs and resonance among guests!
Hoteliers should more often question their own actions, spa consultant Dagmar Rizzato says considering the many mistakes even experienced wellness hoteliers and their architects/designers still make. There any many analyses of guest wishes, but why should a hotelier be interested in towel inventory, sauna paths, cross-selling or even considerate staff?
Certainly, companies should focus more on women. They are an important resource for the future, after all. Accor and Rezidor have already committed themselves with strategy support programmes in order to win over women for senior management posts. I interviewed both of these companies and eight career women. Who supported them, what motivated them, how are women doing in male teams, how important are networks? Read Part 1 today, Part 2 will follow next week. – The full editorial …

Dear Insiders,
With tourism, the hotel industry is also booming, especially in high season. Operators as well as project developers are thoroughly satisfied, at least in Germany. But there are no bargain-priced properties to be had anymore. This was the general tone of the PKF talk round in Munich. Transactions for the first half-year also give rise to hope for new records in Germany. All sun themselves in the demand for hotel real estate. Another study shows that branded hotels boost room rates, and another still attempts to sell investors resorts as the better asset class.
In Italy, on the other hand, trophy assets repeatedly pop up for sale. And so Millennium & Copthorne have moved into the market, bought the famous Grand Hotel Palace Rome from Boscolo and immediately throws out the Autograph Collection, which celebrated the European launch of its new brand there in 2011. The London-based hotel group has developed into an asset manager and has an awful lot more planned.
Over the holidays, many are talking about the environmental burden of mass tourism. Many holidaymakers appreciate alternative energies, wind turbines and solar panels, but don't want to see them on holiday. Here, an Austrian university has revealed a streak of hypocritical nimbyism.
And the rollercoaster ride of the OTAs and review platforms continues: Now, TripAdvisor has won its case in Italy. According to a VDR analysis, German business travellers have little use for the sharing economy. On the other hand, German, French and British travellers are all pushing for WiFi everywhere during their business trip and freely admit that losing their mobile phone would be worse than losing their luggage or travel companion.
Hot claims in hot times. For those looking to plan for the cooler April 2016, the 3rd luxury trade fair "Loop" will take place in Frankfurt in that month. This time, the organiser has separated the event from the ITB. – The full editorial…

Dear Insiders,
The last news first: Yesterday, the French National Assembly definitely voted for the "Macron law" against OTAs. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls will validate the law today, at noon. Hoteliers now know for sure, that it is illegal in France for an OTA to impose rate parity. A sensation! Will the price war start now?
NH Hotels have come out of hiding. About 230 million euros bring fresh wind from Madrid. Yet the dust is to be swept out from the tiniest of structures. After the brand streamlining last year, the company is now pushing forward with its expansion and shoring up its brand network. Various hotels are closed for a complete makeover. Some then immediately present themselves to their guests as "NH Collection" beauties. Maarten Markus and Christian Koerfgen, the two Area Managers for Benelux, France and UK and Central Europe respectively, speak about the changes. Koerfgen has even brought in a hotel specialist from Invesco.
Our correspondent Sarah Douag was in Amsterdam for a live presentation on NH's newest technology push, the Telepresence. She saw Maarten Markus not in person, but as life-size hologram in front of her and an image of the inner ear. Three event managers explain why they give this technology a chance.
The Serviced Apartment Camp appealed to the creativity of apartment hotel operators two weeks ago in Berlin. The result was the idea of a washing machine in the lobby. It will be the hot spot in the apartment hotel of the future. A current report by HVS summarises the growth of this young segment in Europe over the last 12 months.
In many industries, the "Bachelor" is considered somewhat of a half-hearted degree. In the hotel industry, on the other hand, the experience has been good with these graduates. Many see it as career turbo. Greece and Switzerland on the other hand can only dream of a tourism turbo. South of the Alps, a little movement can be watched for bookings: Above all, last minute travel is falling victim to the unclear political situation. Absolute sobriety and pessimism in Switzerland: Only the weather can slow the downwards trend in summer business.
In other news, HVS London has published an interesting report today - on OTAs and it has discovered they are now also competing with the chains with their own loyalty programmes. Jan Hein Simons is now officially COO of Falkensteiner - and that's not the only interesting personnel story today. This and more in a colourful but by no means sunny and carefree edition. – The full editorial …

Dear Insiders,
The first humanoid robot just started its career at Marriott Ghent in Belgium. "Super Mario" speaks 19 languages, hands out room keys and starts Power Point presentations. Its colleagues love him dearly. You too?
The IT expertise of a last-minute provider was highly valued by Secret Escapes when recently buying JustBook. Together, they now control the "flash sales" of luxury hotels: short-term offers at significant discounts. Romana Kanzian informed herself about the philosophy and strategy of this successful shopping club.
The secret of service excellence and technology will likely be found in their combination. After all, this was what both hoteliers and IT experts agreed on at our 5th "Freitagshappen" event. However, it is a great challenge to find out what the one side wants and what the other side is able to deliver. The parlour panel we stage once a year together with host Karl Nueser at Nassauer Hof Wiesbaden provided an excellent setting for an intense exchange. There were some good links.
"Spotlight Hotel Investment Poland" demonstrated that encountering people remains extremely important despite all the technology. My second summary of this second conference in Warsaw in mid-June clearly shows across all discussions that there is no strict development and investment pattern. The Polish listen well to their neighbours and look for an ideal mixture to apply to their country, which is in high demand.
This week was dominated by the political drama involving Greece and the terrorist attack in Tunisia: there is uncertainty as well as restrained or open despair everywhere ... Once more, tourism is a victim. Sarah Douag provides a brief summary of the current situation.
In addition, she explains why Hyatt likely bought the Onefinestay luxury rental platform. Booking.com and Expedia have been operating since Wednesday based on new terms and conditions – the hotel associations in Germany, Switzerland and HOTREC are cautioning against these provisions. One year after the football world cup in Brazil, the owner wants to sell Campo Bahia, which accommodated the German national team during the world cup. Immerse yourself in the details. – The full editorial…

Dear Insiders,
Whilst the French hotels are already drinking Champagne, OTAs are considering defensive measures: France is about to pass a new law nullifying all contracts between OTAs and hoteliers. Booking.com expects a massive price war to ensue. EMEA boss Peter Verhoeven gives his opinion on the move. HRS and Expedia have decided to wait and see.
At the 2nd "Spotight Hotel Investment Poland" conference last week in the Westin, Warsaw, many conversations focussed on rates and earnings in the individual Polish markets. Above all the capital must consider what tourism strategy it should pursue. Emotions were highest when it came to the question of whether Warsaw needs a mega convention centre. An initial summary.
Starwood's SPG TV has proved itself as image and economic success. Guests at least switch on the in-house TV channel, which advertises the company's own brands with travel stories, more often than other channels. Now, Marriott is to follow. In St. Moritz, the Kulm Hotel has come on board and Accor's Mercure takes its initial steps into social media.
And back to France: The French government is to establish a tourism fund of hundreds of millions of euros and with this to smash the 100 million visitor mark by 2020. Spa experts now also want to implement French standards across the entire sector and abroad with the Spa-A label. In Austria, two former skiers invest further in Adeo and are taking the motel concept with them into the mountains. HVS reports on market results from the Middle East, there's news on various loyalty programmes and of course on personalia. – The full editorial…

Dear Insiders,
With migration to cities unabated, space there is becoming scarcer and ever more expensive. This also applies to hotels. Two weeks ago, we presented the hybrid room Zoku which combines apartment and hotel features to offer a smart new room solution on just 24 sq.m. Today, we present the next step up: the 9 square mater room by "Buddy". The idea comes from a career changer on the hotel scene: Johannes Eckelmann, also the founder of the successful Cocoon budget hotels. He showed us the Buddy construction site and the mock-up room. The first hotel will open in Munich, Expansion is the target. Investors are guaranteed to be found. Hats off!
In the same article, we also describe the "Hotel Room 2020" by Rilano Hotels. With its "bathroom cylinder" and other highlights, this young, high-tech-savvy hotel group shows just how cleverly you can live on just 15-18 sq.m. It seems there are just a few innovators in the industry after all.
In this connection, I would like to quote from Horst Brandstaetter's obituary this week: The Playmobil inventor, so the obituary stated, hated the phrase "It's always been that way." His staff promise him "that you'll never hear that sentence from us!". That's what I call spirit beyond death! What an invitation, to question everything and to be open for new things! When I think of the complaining in our industry in this regard...
Back to this week's edition: It's still something special for me when highly-demanded hotel groups such as Doha-based Katara Hospitality grant us 60 minutes for an interview. It's good to be able to clarify some of the rumours circulating in the media directly with Hamad Al Mulla and to be informed personally on the developments and changes - for instance on the new Murwab Hotel Group and why he believes that Peninsula Paris can still make improvements.
Rather unnoticed by the public, many hotels are today active in art and literature. Yet only a few are willing to open their doors to "writers in residence" - that is, to provide painters or authors with a home over a certain period and to benefit from this. Romana Kanzian has collected some examples from all over the world.
The next revolution against OTAs may pop up in France: This week, we were told that rate parity might be forbidden by law in France! In Austria, there are two scandalous insolvencies: one of them, the spa resort For Friends will close after just one year in operation. In Germany, Interstar positions itself as new master franchisee with ex-Hilton developer Wolfgang Gallas and in Austria hotelier Sepp Schellhorn opens his hotel to refugees despite threats. And we also have a number of interesting personalia and much more...

Dear Insiders,
Coincidence will have it that we get an exclusive interview with Booking.com and Peter Verhoeven at exactly the same time as AccorHotels launches its attack on the OTAs. A controversial constellation. Exactly a year ago, Verhoeven was still a top manager at AccorHotels before he advanced to Managing Director EMEA with the Amsterdam-based IT giant. He took his Accor suit off and put his stonewashed jeans on.
Though only his photo is relaxed in the typical start-up creative style. Verhoeven's statements are crystal clear and hard as stone. "Nobody is forced to work with us," he said. Or: "All this can't be for free." Sarah Douag, our correspondent in Amsterdam, put his statements into context in a comprehensive report. Read for yourself what the mega OTA Booking.com thinks and feels in June 2015.
Verhoeven obviously also has a word on the new AccorHotels platform, though he's not alone. Other hoteliers and experts from seven European countries also comment this week on this absolutely new move in online distribution. Reactions stretch from a rigorous "no" to a cautious "yes". Clear is: If AccorHotels provides no transparency, fairness and clear benefits, the chain will damage its credibility - and its business. A lot is at stake. CEO Sébastien Bazin is caught in a game of chess. If he loses the game, shareholders will perhaps also swoop in with a checkmate.
As coincidence will also have it, our correspondent Massimiliano Sarti met the Accor boss Italy. Renzo Iorio. He reports on bridging the gap between franchise and asset heavy in a difficult expansion market.
To break things up a bit, we also look this week at the luxury segment and its emotions. But not every hotel or sales manager has the skill of anticipating customer wishes. Talking about this is also Andreas Mueller, Corporate Coach and Managing Director of Lobster Experience, which also organises the luxury trade fair Loop in Frankfurt.
The luxury market is also growing considerably, the IPK and ITB show. Holiday home tourism is three time as large as expected, new figures show. And Vienna was misled by expectations which were far too high for the Eurovision Song Contest, just like Rochard Vogel whose star as partner of the Deutsche Seereederei is again falling.
The hospitality star at Expo Real 2015 is rising further... Currently, 22 companies have confirmed their participation at the joint stand "World of Hospitality". The early bird discount will expire in two weeks! Or benefit from our network by supporting BRICKS&BRAINS or the SPECIAL. Page 1 includes the update. – The full editorial …

Dear Insiders,
Accor has declared war on the OTAs: Europe's biggest hotel chain has created a booking portal for all. It wants independent hotels to allow their bookings to go through AccorHotels.com... Of course, this immediately poses the following question: Would it be better for a private hotelier to exchange the unpopular "Booking's" of this world for a colleague from one's own industry? Or is that colleague not better to be viewed as a competitor?
Sarah Douag puts the surprising mutation into context. CEO Sébastien Bazin is determined to implement his repositioning strategy, including surprises. Help for medium-sized companies also comes from quite another corner: A German start-up says it is the helping hand for hoteliers fed up with the OTAs. Indirectly, DreamCheaper automatically checks room bookings of travellers and rebooks rooms if it finds the same room elsewhere - on whatever channel - somewhere cheaper. The guest pays the commission, the hotelier pays nothing. That sounds good.
Zoku also wants to revolutionise the industry - with a room-hybrid between hotel and serviced apartment, with "Zoku Lofts" of 25 sq.m! Hans Meyer, one of the creators of citizenM, is behind this smart and stylish room concept for the modern nomad. The first hotel will open soon in Amsterdam. This provides yet another solution for small layouts in over-populated and over-priced large cities.
In a separate news, we report on other small innovations in the apartment hotel industry, I also finally managed to take a look at Germany's first Adagio Access. The Austrians are now marketing "Nature reloaded" and for the first time a tourism "quarterly" appears in Austria; the majority shareholder of the Swiss Victoria-Jungfrau Collection now intends to acquire a 100%, and towards the middle of the year, the personnel carousel begins to turn much faster....
We also once again look forward to the small conference "Spotlight Hotel Investment Poland" on June 16, 2015, in the Westin Hotel Warsaw. You want to know more about this promising market? Join this interesting one-day conference. Further details on our Page 1. – The full editorial …

Dear Insiders,
Of the international MICE destinations, Germany still occupies pole position - and even achieved new records in 2014. Recent data on the strengths and weaknesses of the hotel scene were presented at the IMEX in Frankfurt this week. A negative point: the snail's pace of hoteliers in online matters.
By contrast, the decisiveness of Omer Kaddouri sounds more high-speed: The CEO of the Arabian Rotana Hotels will begin expansion towards Europe. He wants to appear with "Family & Friends". What that means, he explained at the ATM in Dubai.
Following our Dubai excursion at the beginning of May, Susanne Stauss and I have today summarised several developments in the Middle East. There's no escaping the superlative projects, but they make increasingly sceptical. The chains obviously take a less restrictive view and do whatever their Arabian investors demand: they even dilute their brands. Accor is a good example here. Positive: Countries like Croatia see how GCC guests enjoy travel and have their own ideas here.
Instead of complaining about Airbnb & Co, one Spaniard took another look: Kike Sarasola first founded a hotel group and then bought up private apartment providers. Now, the customer finds both in the city and the hotel reception also takes responsibility for apartment bookings etc. Sarasola is, by the way, an Olympic rider and not a hotelier. What does that tell us?
Happier customers are loyal customers, this was the finding of the VDR with respect to business travel. But that would certainly also apply to other areas? Booking.com still has to learn though: The OTA again attempted this week to lead German hoteliers on to thin ice in terms of parity clauses. The German Hotel Association is clear in its response. – The full editorial…

Dear Insiders,
Today, there'll be moans and criticisms. Article 1: The old hotel industry which we all know is a thing of the past. Hoteliers without an online strategy will die - of IT failure. Lateral thinker Marco Nussbaum tells us in a guest contribution today what annoys him about the constant moaning from his colleagues with regard to the OTAs. Very readable!
Article 2: The Italians are fed up too. They no longer want to be the football of tax rules, OTAs and Sharing Economy. However, there's no silver lining on the horizon for them. Performance figures from the sector for the period between January and April are thin. Massimiliano Sarti was at the Federalberghi's annual conference.
Article 3: The contribution on the new "future hotel" in Vienna prompted a comment from me; our correspondent Fred Fettner describes what the German Fraunhofer Institute has taught the Austrian 3-star family hotel through a piece of research on "innovation". What has been developed there over seven years has long been replaced. The future can look so old. And even if the parties involved praise the online check-in with direct check-in in the room, the overall impression remains disappointing.
And in the news this week: In Italy, Atahotels and UNA Hotels have merged and therefore form one of the biggest chains in the country; in the CEE countries, the large cities at least celebrate a recovery; in the US, it has been shown that a two-brand concept in one complex can have very different results; we shortly introduce the new investment company Lapithus; a new Amsterdam market report says that hostels challenge budget hotels there; and a study on cruise ships questions current emissions practices. Last remark about yesterday's news: The European Union approved the compromise of the EU Package Travel Directive. – The full editorial …