Dear Insiders,
Arabella Hospitality, based in Munich, is back as an active hotel operator eager for expansion. Its new strategy focuses, among other things, on the fresh franchise soft brands from Marriott and on the two luxury classics St. Regis (also Marriott) and Rosewood (New World). Noble or efficient, expensive or affordable. With this, CEO Karl-Heinz Pawlizki serves two poles of the market where money can be made.
The new ultra-luxury Rosewood Munich hotel will open slightly later than originally planned, now in mid-October, but still with the anticipated €1,000 starting rate. Everything has to fit. During my flying visit this week, the workmen were still in full swing. Just in time for the Oktoberfest, on the other hand, Marriott's second Residence Inn opens, but this time operated by Arabella - a first. A solid, pleasant extended-stay product in a prime location; you can literally smell the cash.
Arabella intends to grow further in German-speaking Europe (DACH) and in Spain. "We can still open a hotel anywhere," says the CEO, "but please always without rigid standards!" This applies just as much to city hotels as to the leisure destinations. The new impetus for the new strategy stems from the transformation of Schörghuber Holding: Everything is decentralised again!
In my view, this makes for an exciting read today as it shows both how to pivot and how to optimise strategies. And equally exciting is our second mega-story today: The Energy & Environment Alliance in London, which hardly anyone in continental Europe knows about. The EEA is in the process of defining the (EU) standards and definitions for sustainable hotel real estate and its financing. And with powerful partners like BREEAM at its side. The EEA's members include many committed hotel investors, operators, banks, lawyers and many others, and they all want to have a say and help shape the future of their hospitality real estate!
Ufi Ibrahim founded EEA in 2020; insiders are most likely to recognise her name from her time as CEO of UKHospitality, the British trade association. Or from her ten years at WTTC. She is a dazzling networker and an analytical strategist.
Now she is once again trying to give structure and a face to a helpless industry. Under the pressure of ESG regulations, Ufi starts at the most delicate point: with the investors and the NON-existing shoulder-to-shoulder between hotel investors and hotel operators. A mega-plan, a mega-project.
In our news today, you can read about a new global study on shopping tourism, which has by no means reached its full potential. In Berlin, German tourism professionals fluffed the opening of the National Platform on the Future of Tourism, and the hospitality industry association Dehoga is now getting a lot of "pro" votes from the public in the fight to keep the reduced VAT rate in place. After gastro sales disappointed in the summer, the tax issue is now slowly becoming existential.
And last but not least, today is about ourselves: We are launching the first pages this morning as part of our website relaunch. For the first time you will see the Event pages and the Marketplace in the new design. Just in time for the real estate fair, we present our exhibitors on our Expo Real page! We have also integrated the previously separate HITT Think Tank site into our core product.
On all public pages we will offer more free content for everyone in the future: Expert contributions from content partners (such as from F&B Heroes today), colourful announcements and news with real utility value - primarily around the topics of sustainability and digitalisation. As always with hospitalityInside, the editors make a careful selection of news and of course only from reliable sources.
Just take a look... We are open to your suggestions. The switch of the magazine from the old to the new system will follow shortly. Along with the more than 30,000 articles the editorial team has written since 2005.
We'll keep writing then!
Till next Friday!
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief
