Editorial

Dear Insiders,
The hotel industry has no desire for crisis. Before the Expo Real, which starts on Monday, the sector makes an impression of unshakeablity. In contrast to other sectors, the sun is still shining on the hotel business, albeit with a few hazy clouds on the horizon. Several surveys confirm the positive "hotel climate". Next Friday, we'll know if it really was a show of backslapping or if the frowns have deepened.
As always, HospitalityInside is right in the middle of events in the hotel sector: If you don't know us yet, stop by for a coffee and get to know us! The "World of Hospitality" is once again larger this year: As well as the main stand, AccorInvest and GSH/Gorgeous Smiling Hotels have taken up special areas. You will find us again in hall A2 at stand numbers 140 and 040.
The profiles of our 29 co-exhibitors and the stand plan can also be found today in our brand-new Expo Real SPECIAL, which we describe on our website. It is, by the way, the 10th Special Issue, this year with a circulation of over 4,000 print copies, exclusively for Expo Real. You can obtain a copy of the magazine at the trade fair itself and in over 60 Munich hotels. Alternatively, you can click on the SPECIAL banner on our page 1, which is linked to the online magazine.
In this Special Issue you will also find the conference programme for Monday and the special panel on digitisation on Tuesday.
We also expect over 200 guests at the networking event BRICKS & BRAINS. Here, room could at times become tight, but the mood is, as we said, quite positive... See you in Munich!
On today's edition: At the Hogan Lovells Hotel Day in Hamburg in the middle of September, several speeches focused on the run on the cities. 300 cities generate 80% of added value worldwide. And the tourists still pour in... An issue that fits well with Expo Real, touching on sustainable urban development, mixed-use city districts and city-controlled hotel planning, as Hamburg is considering.
Mama Shelter also fits into this urban jungle. In the recently opened hotel in Lille, Susanne Stauss spoke with the owners, the Trigano family, about their success with standardised lifestyle. A concept with a bright design and a lot of F&B, which obviously brings a top profit.
By contrast, it was all about quality and long-term value at the foot of Neuschwanstein Castle: Two weeks ago, an Ameron Hotel, part of the Althoff Group, opened its doors there. Althoff Group is growing fastest with this upscale brand, but the first Urban Loft is now also under construction. Thomas H. Althoff describes the status quo.
Have fun reading today – and for those planning on attending, we wish you a pleasant journey to Expo Real!

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
Our first article on the brand madness last week has already caused quite a stir among readers. And once again, they have responded with valuable input for another intense story. Today though, after the operators, we let the investors and financiers have their say. The message from them is more a plea for fewer brands – but with more substance. And one of them said: Operators would do better to focus on the essential problems of the industry... A super topic, great material for the discussions at Expo Real...
Following the Thomas Cook bankruptcy last week, news has broken every day. We have put together the most important information, of course with special emphasis on the hotel sector. Strange is: Thomas Cook refused offers of help from Mediterranean hoteliers. The resort hotels in Spain, Greece and Turkey face hardship as a result.
Small hotels fear for their existence, but TC CEO Peter Fankhauser has, as the British "Telegraph" reports, since taking office in 2014 earned the equivalent of around 9.4 million euros, of which 3.3 million euros as a bonus.
One would wish for a Greta against greed. In any case, the climate issue is now also giving mobility experts a boost - and hoteliers should also listen. Because if guests fly less and travel more by train in future, the pick-up service and mobility at the holiday destination will also change. Fred Fettner has listened to the discussion between the Austrian Federal Railways and the CEO of Austrian Airlines.
And in other news: Wyndham targets 10,000 franchises. Falkensteiner Hotels enters its fourth crowd investing round. At its 60th anniversary this week, Dorint Hotels thanked its investors for staying the course in difficult times. And job applicants complain in a study that employers do not state salary levels in their vacancy advertisements.
In our News Mix today, we see that the real estate sector continues to provide new openings and new brands. Plenty of topics for discussion in Munich then when, in 10 days’ time, Hospitality meets Real Estate again. But until then, some of us will step up a gear yet again. Before the Expo Real there will of course be another edition from us...

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
Brand euphoria is definitely a thing of the past as critical debates about the label above hotel doors have started all over the world. Only mega players cling to it, as they gave birth to these marketing products or adopted them themselves.
"Brands have a meaning – something sexual, fresh, and modern," says Sébastien Bazin getting worked up about his 38 hotel and new business brands. Operators and consultants talking to Susanne Stauss and me consider all that less sexy: There are profound reasons against brands, and some brands have even become victims of chains. But there are also reasons for keeping brands alive.
We asked 25hours, Design Hotels, Ruby, TUI Hotels, Choice, prizeotel and Hilton. Despite all criticism, experts don't give the all-clear: The current brand madness even facilitates mergers. Next week, we'll be talking with investors and owners about this.
On the investors' side, there is a similar madness going on at the moment: The ROI seems in freefall, but investors still pay astronomically high prices for hotel properties. Why? They love them. Like Bazin. Yesterday, Bulwiengesa presented its "Five Percent" study that also takes a look at the hotel industry – but without any emotions.
Macy Marvel will lead us out of these mistakes and confusions – to Southeast Asia: He analysed individual countries with respect to chain penetration. In this region, everything is about growth. Would anybody please advise Asians to take a brief look towards the West? Thank you!
You need to look deep down, if you are looking for the brand new "salary biography" of the hotel and catering sector. Up to the heights of Bad Gastein in Salzburger Land we will be looking at Travel Charme Hotels that have a bit more to tell us about their current projects. A big entrepreneur in Austria has a vision for Klagenfurt's small airport: He wants to invest 1 million euros including a hotel. In contrast, TripAdvisor is now into full transparency, shocked by the most recent judgement in Italy, which hit the company deeply. Reading how many reviews they get and how they filter them is, however, highly interesting.
And now we'd like to make you aware of our "Investment Barometer": Only a few clicks may reveal highly interesting facts about the hotel real estate market. Please take part in our survey accessible via this link. Our collaboration partner, Union Investment, and we thank you very much!
 
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
Premier Inn is pushing forward. The aim: 300 hotels in Germany, and that as fast as possible. The Whitbread subsidiary intends to give Accor with its 380 hotels, and most probably others too, something to fear. A new head in the company has fixed the new strategy: "Mixed use is my thing," says Dr Michael Hartung, a professional from the construction and retail sector. He also wants partners from other sectors, not just the hotel industry. And from 2020, he will only accept partners with an affinity to BIM. The man is also a digital whizz. Premier Inn in the fast lane?
Young entrepreneur Ritesh Argawal at Oyo also thinks outside the box, but doubts have been raised regarding his integrity as a businessman. Law enforcement in India is now on his tail for unfair practices against private hoteliers. Sarah Douag's efforts to learn more have finally been rewarded and she discovered many more details about the start-up, which doesn’t have to be feared, but should certainly be kept under observation.
We also take a closer look at the beautiful world of holiday resorts in Austria. A small elite dictates quality and secures itself 50% of added value. The remaining resort hotels are left fighting for the other 50% of turnover. Not exactly holiday idyll. Fred Fettner lets the figures speak for themselves.
Fairmas' figures on current performance in Germany's top 6 cities paint a different, less optimistic picture to that real estate professionals are seeking in new construction projects. Taking both these short articles together, it looks more like dusk than dawn.
In Italy, the industry can be pleased that investors now prefer hotel assets to any other asset class! There's movement in the market. Chinese OTAs are becoming ever stronger and are likely to put pressure on US platforms. And at Hogan Lovells Hotel Day this week in Hamburg, I was amazed at how much investors and developers are putting the stops on sustainable buildings. Most are interested only in ROI, to the exclusion of everything else.
Last but not least, today provides a foretaste of the Expo Real conference programme, which on the first day of the fair will once again offer top topics, e.g. on hospitality hybrids in the micro-city, on cut-throat competition among chains, on resorts and holiday apartments, on asset light and HR. Take a look at the conference program at www.exporeal.net under “Hospitality Industry Dialogue”. An additional panel on digitisation entitled "Real Estate as a service" will also take place on Tuesday.
And with this, we launch our online survey again today, the annual hospitalityInside INVESTMENT BAROMETER in tried and tested cooperation with Union Investment. Join us! We are interested in your opinion. Or does the apparent current boom not make you nervous? You find all details on our page 1.  Participation is open to all, now and here: Click & Go! 

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,

Mountain pastures certainly belong to the most beautiful holiday destinations. A place of longing for city dwellers, with idyllic pictures of meadows, grazing cows and picnics in the cabin. After Salzburger Land, Tyrol is now also pushing this idyll into a marketing pigeonhole. In the professional jargon, the product "alm" sounds quite commercial. But it's a mega-trend, even if media report of "killer cows" and savage wolves in this context.

The beautiful landscape of Azerbaijan with its mud volcanoes, palaces and wines also stirs yearning. Bärbel Schwertfeger was there and discovered: Baku has a young, fresh face. We reported on Baku for the first time in 2012, since then the hotel business has become much more professional. The German hotelier Martin Kleinmann loves to make a difference – both at the national chain Absheron and as President of the ten-month-old Azerbaijan hotel association. The big goal: to achieve competitive standards like in the West.

In southern Europe, more precisely in the Ligurian tourist cities of Rapallo and Zoagli, a group of hoteliers are daring to resist the new "standards" of Booking.com. The OTA wants to make small hotels more visible through its Preferred Partner Programme, but promises something questionable and then rips them off with increased commissions. In Italy, this has made waves. Now, more hoteliers want to corner Booking.com.

The IT professionals and their big promises – they also stand out in a brand-new global CRM study. It revealed: CRM systems often bring with them excessive system facilities that even two years later are still not used. Professional hosts thus fall victim to IT professionals. Tables, figures and facts are clear. Help is also promised by the Hotelhero database, which aims to bring order to the chaos which currently comprises 500 software providers and 700 systems. How? We asked.

It’s also about buying and selling in our update on the wave of consolidation among hotel operators and changes in owning structures. We also have news from Meininger, Motel One, Interstate, Palladium and others. Meanwhile, the hotel market in Paris is a little more serene, having experienced a significant recovery. In Amsterdam, Britain's Prince Harry and other big names have committed themselves to a "green" initiative – with the giants Booking.com, Tripadvisor, Ctrip, Skyscanner and Visa. Together they are stronger. As of yet though, it's still only a PR campaign.

In our "Digi News" and "Market News" you will find many more interesting short news about hotel openings, financing and digital topics. A colourful edition, again just as colourful as the industry.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
The holiday season in Central Europe is coming to an end, and we too are back in the thick of it: Today, Macy Marvel shows in detail how Jin Jiang and Oyo Hotels are shaking things up in the ranking of the global top ten hotel chains; a list which has seen very little movement over the decades. Now though, Hilton, IHG, Wyndham, Accor, Choice have indeed had to cede their positions. The trend: In future, the hotel world will speak Chinese. The next big chains from China have already fought their way up to positions between 10 and 20 in the ranking.
And again it is a Chinese company that's changing the tour operator landscape: Fosun has brought Thomas Cook under his control. Sarah Douag researched the details. That too will be a new chapter...
Banks and payment providers are fighting on another front: against credit card fraud. The hotel industry will have to step up here too as the fraudsters know all the weak points in online payment. Hotel groups describe their toughest cases, Susanne Stauss has researched tips and contacts to prevent fraud.
And Greta Thunberg continues her fight. First against the ocean waves on the way to New York, and today with her protest banner, striking in front of the United Nations... She was greeted on the water by the UN with 17 boats – as a symbol for the 17 UN "Sustainable Development Goals". Fred Fettner also investigated the activities of tourism providers and destinations in the Alpine region and in so doing saw much change at a mere snail's pace: "In three decades of discussion of sustainable travel in the Alpine region, tourism has made only homoeopathic progress," Peter Zimmer says, the experienced sustainability consultant at Futour.
Marriott is now building its own platform for all-inclusive resorts – even the smallest niche is to be occupied. This is also a sign of the now fierce competition between the global giants – see above. And after many other chains, a hacker attack has now also hit Choice. Switzerland is pleased about a slight increase in overnight stays in the first half of the year, just as IHG, Marriott, Motel One, NH and Orascom are pleased about positive six months in their balance sheets...
In our very long News Mix today you will also find news from the period in which we were away. This ensures our archive is up to date and also allows you to catch up after your holidays. The current market situation is also evident here: EasyHotel is in the process of being taken over, but founder Stelios Haji-Iannou is still defending himself.
From now on, we will be there for you every Friday until Christmas and we look forward to your comments and suggestions. The hotel world certainly is heading towards the end of the year with mixed feelings. The time of reliable superlatives is over.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi offers a fantastic beach and a lot of hot sand, but the city is not yet quite the tourist hotspot, despite its high-flying cultural plans. A single star museum, the Louvre, is not enough to make an impression, and at the beach there are only five of the 29 hotels originally planned. The destination is bobbing along slowly. A director explains why; Bärbel Schwertfeger wrote it down.
Fred Fettner listened attentively as Austrian industry movers including Susanne Kraus-Winkler, former HOTREC president, and others reported that they were renegotiating the use of hotel stars with online giants such as Google. Both sides are striving for a uniform solution to ensure "hotel stars" are credible and able to shine both online and off. Exciting.
And finally Martin Löcker was in a chatty mood. The COO of UBM Development AG in Vienna aims to position the company as the largest hotel developer in Europe. Big chains are its partners, and that's how it's to stay. But the hotels are getting bigger and greater emphasis is placed on that little bit extra. Competition is giving quality a boost. A good plan.
Our news today describe the relaunch of the faded IHG brand Crowne Plaza, TripAdvisors' new love for destinations, the European Court of Justice ruling on Facebook's "Like" button and how companies can stay on the safe side in this tricky case. Accor, Hyatt, Radisson as well as the Italian hotel groups HNH and Starhotels have published their quarterly and half-year results.
And last but not least, we include an update on the HospitalityInside activities at Expo Real: with more exhibitors and a 'Save the date' for our networking event on a different day. All of this can be found on our Page 1.
Our team will be off now until Friday 30 August, with the next issue. Before then, we allow ourselves a holiday break. The office will open again on 19 August, also in preparation for the upcoming relaunch of our website. The editorial team will definitely be back in three weeks' time with exciting new content!
Happy summer break...

Maria Pütz-Willems & the hospitalityInside team

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
Somehow these hotel reviews have got out of hand. A roundtable event with HolidayCheck, the medical services review portal Jameda, the employer reviews portal Kununu and the Consumer counseling focused on the fight against fakes and on protecting credibility. Fakers are always one step ahead of the law and respond quickly to protection measures. Consumer protection bodies therefore demand clear rules. "Self-regulation by a few ambitious portals won't solve the problem."
In any case, business with fake review is booming in almost all sectors and can have absurd consequences, as HolidayCheck Director Georg Ziegler reports: In Turkey, for example, bank loans are now only granted subject to a certain rating on HolidayCheck. ... Reviews have descended into nothing but a circus, Bärbel Schwertfeger summarises.
She also interviewed the Managing Director of Kununu, Sarah Müller, on the fringes of this roundtable. The employer reviews portal receives 50,000 reviews and 400 complaints per month. The search for hotel reviews throws up mixed results, as our selected examples of well-known chains and individual hotels show. The hotel industry doesn't cut a good figure here, but neither does Kununu as a portal.
And already the next online evaluation is just around the corner: Online Birds from Munich has developed an algorithm that allows you to analyse the online marketing performance of any website – either your own or your competitor's. Yet obtaining such a report is easier said than done – for the time being, the system only works for individual hotels; yet, it could result in an interesting benchmark in future. In any case, the German hotel association IHA recently awarded Online Birds its Innovation Prize.
Our news is a varied mix once again: There's a new Wikkelhouse, a holiday cottage made of cardboard. But you can also turn it into an office or a meeting room. According to Dr. Lübke, most of Germany's top 10 cities now see their hotel KPIs drifting into negative territory, either because demand is declining or supply is too high. This is one of the reasons why American Express expects the hotel industry to only achieve slightly higher hotel prices in 2020. Hapimag, Hilton and Scandic present their figures for the 2nd quarter and 1st half respectively.
Bernhard Bohnenberger, President of Six Senses, is retiring five months after the acquisition by IHG. And after four weeks, Kempinski has finally officially confirmed its new CFO. Today's edition also includes our "Digi News", as well as our regular News Mix.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
Congested motorways, congested villages and exhausted hotel maids.... It's summer again! Welcome! Don't be alarmed if your guests get stuck in traffic even more often than usual this year, arriving annoyed after a trying journey: In high season, Austria closes the exits on several motorways so that its small villages are not clogged up by holiday traffic. Locals are able to continue to get to their baker in 5 and not in 30 minutes. German ADAC describes this new measure in Tyrol and in Salzburg Land as an "absurdity" in the holiday period. But the Austrians see no disadvantages for their tourism. Fred Fettner took a look at the delicate situation.
Tourism is booming. But anyone who believes that this might be a reason to pay maxed-out chambermaids in Germany, Austria or even Spain a little more money or to treat them any better is mistaken. Nothing has changed. In this "people business" there are managers who continue to outsource their housekeeping for cost reasons and who very well accept that the – independent – companies commissioned to provide these services are merciless in passing on the pressure to their cleaning staff in order to squeeze out greater profits themselves.
It’s a frustrating conclusion, after all the room is the very soul of a comfortable stay, and a carefully working hotel maid is the guarantor for good hotel reviews. But what controller is interested in checking this? We are curious to see what outrageous hotel maid stories the TV stations and social media will be bring us this summer.
And for algorithms, too, a look behind the scenes is necessary. Such automated, "masked" analysis tools can't simply be trusted blindly. And certainly not when it comes to recruitment: Crude decisions made by AI can stigmatise people. Nevertheless, Dr Jörg Dräger warns against extreme "either-or" thinking. The Bertelsmann Stiftung is currently researching the "ethics of algorithms" and its Chairman issues an appeal in an interview with Bärbel Schwertfeger today for people to control machines.
Without AI and networked thinking/working, soon it will be a case of nothing working anymore. In a period of just eight months, students from a university in Baden-Württemberg have now succeeded in programming the digital property "seamlessly" – from property search, though to planning and financing and finally to property and operational data; today, a first impression of this project. But its reality check has yet to come.
In Italy, TripAdvisor is fined EUR 100,000 for deceiving consumers about its reviews. And from England comes a new franchise report for Europe with lots of figures. Enjoy reading...

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world

Dear Insiders,
Old, rigid Property Management Systems are a great hindrance for hotel companies as they set out on the path of full digitalisation. Newcomers have arrived on the scene, but they've not quite managed to break through the walls of the PMS. An IT-experienced hotelier has sharp words of criticism for the PMS providers: Today, their systems would already be able to cover 95% of the customer journey digitally. But that's precisely what they don't want to do because it would destroy their business model. We also asked the developer and investor Art-Invest and the young operator Ruby Hotels for their opinion. A white paper by The Hague provides critical approaches to the use of PMS and a global survey of hoteliers for their opinions on PMS documents their yearning for change.
At Robotise, the small robot manufacturer in Munich, there'll be no summer break this year. Just three years after the company was founded, production of the moving and talking all-round service provider 'Jeeves' is now really beginning to take off. Co-founder Johannes Fuchs explains why and how they built the minibar chatbot.
For Italy, Massimiliano Sarti again traces the small steps of change: Slowly, more and more local investors are daring to venture into secondary locations, while international investors still focus on the same "Big 4" cities.
The market in Germany is definitely been swept bare, as real estate brokers uniformly confirm for the first half of 2019. The result is clear. The market is collapsing for lack of supply. The situation is different in Austria, where a record year of transactions is in the offing. Among the hotel operators, Dorint Hotels and its parent Honestis AG as well as Novum Hotels have posted their annual financial statements for 2018. All the ratios are higher.
The boom is also fired by shifts like this: Last year, over 200,000 new motor homes and caravans were registered in Europe. The caravan is regaining its appeal, it's quite incredible. The hotel ban in Amsterdam has not harmed the industry, rates are rising sharply. No joy currently at Marriott: After the breach of the European General Data Protection Regulation in the wake of the data scandal at Starwood Hotels, the chain is refusing to pay the EUR 109 million fine.

A news week as colourful and mixed as the weather... Till next Friday!
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems, Editor in Chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com

Follow us on LinkedIn / The Think Tank www.hitt.world