Editorial
Dear Insiders,
The nice thing about our background reporting is that we don't have to wait for new events to happen in order to write something about companies and their strategies. Accordingly, we learn about a lot of news "in passing" like today in the case of InterContinental - such as the fact that the group is open for franchise agreements with respect to its luxury brand. The two German top managers of IHG, Willy Weiland and Karl-Heinz Pawlizki, told us even more.
Design Hotels also announced new products in Berlin yesterday. Products, not all members know about. The refined profile of the consortium slowly comes to fruition and is boosting sales. CEO Claus Sendlinger is successfully setting his sights on selection and exclusiveness.
The issue of environmental protection generally leads to a lot of discussions. The Austrian hotelier association, an extremely important opinion-maker in the most tourism-dependant country in Europe, dedicated its entire annual meeting to this topic! My colleague Fred Fettner and I will introduce you to the field of environmental protection. And further articles will follow - not only about this occasion. Concerning the importance this issue has gained throughout the industry, we decided to introduce a separate Environment column starting with today's issue.
You should be well familiar with the Events column. As of today, we'll promote ITB 2008 and the 3rd "Hospitality Day" there. hospitalityInside.com will be responsible for the content of this hotel conference again - read about the five panel discussions awaiting you! And please make a note of the ITB Thursday to visit us on site.
The minor news once again has a lot to offer today: There is irritation at Parkhotel Schlangenbad near Wiesbaden: a great number of employees and even the General Manager are leaving the hotel! August Jagdfeld realises his dream of his own hotel collection step by step: Fundus is renamed Adlon Holding!
But there is even more. Have fun surfing!
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Questions? maria@hospitalityInside.com
for whatever reason people today are travelling, they want to relax and feel at home in their hotel. This is noted with particular pleasure by hotels with spas. Just how high profits are from various hotel spa departments is now shown by a recent study compiled by PKF experts. The principal results are presented in this week's edition of hospitalityInside.com.
An innovative hotel in Austria, however, has gone one step further than the spa: Having recently completed extension works adding 29 new rooms, a parking garage and generous extension of the spa area, the former Hotel Lamm in Seefeld, now AlpenMed Hotel Lamm, has placed its bets on the success of the "Medical Spa". 220,000 Euros of the total 6.5 million Euros that were invested in the project were applied to the purchase and installation of a cold chamber. Here, the hotel guests literally freeze themselves back to good health as the full body cold therapy is applied, inter alia, to eases inflammatory illness and muscle injuries . Read about further details in this week's article.
But relaxation and enjoyment is not the sole domain of guests at the resorts: business travellers staying at budget hotels also have their demands. These observations, primarily from the American chains, are now becoming evident on the European markets. Two things are particularly important to business travellers between 25 and 45 years of age: state of the art technology and a cosier atmosphere than this type of hotel has provided up to now.
Also in this edition, our writer Guy Dittrich takes a look at the design of a young hotel. He travelled to the hotel The Ring in Vienna to assess their claim of "casual luxury", a claim which he found only to be satisfied with emphasis on the word "casual", at least with respect to the choice of materials.
This week's top personalia is provided by Starwood Capital boss Barry Sternlicht, who has entrusted Neil B. Jacobs, an experienced Four Seasons Hotel Manager, with the direction of his Global Hotel Operations. Jacobs is to take charge of the hotel brands Baccarat, 1 Hotels and Residences as well as Crillon. In Switzerland's luxury hotel industry, the personnel carousel continues to turn. Jean-Jaques Baur has now been appointed as Daniel Ziegler's successor at the Eden Roc. He will leave the Kulm Hotel in St. Moritz at the end of the winter season.
We also take another look at Dubai this week. There, the Kuwaiti Group IFA Hotels & Resorts has developed various types for their residences in one hotel.
In as little as six weeks' time, the industry will once again meet at the next ITB in Berlin. Contacts will be forged, deals will be done and news exchanged. Read more about participation at the trade fair and about hospitalityInside's involvement at the third hotel conference on ITB Thursday.
Yours,
Susanne Stauss
Senior Editor
Any ideas? susanne@hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
The team at hospitalityInside.com wishes you all a very happy new year and every success! This year will bring another 50 new and hopefully exciting editions from us.
Today: The new year has brought with it a number of interesting new personalia - and Worldhotels a new owner. The former reservation and marketing association is currently in the process of establishing itself as a global hotel group - and has been accompanied by hot news in the last weeks.
Leaseholders in Germany should pay attention to the hidden increase in business tax as of January 2008. PKF Munich took a closer look for us. Check your tax!
That in 2008 the topic of residences will stand on the agenda of various hotel companies here in German speaking Europe was clear to me from many an insider discussion. For this reason Manfred Schoenleben, one of the most distinguished experts in this subject, gives a gentle and understandable introduction to this complex subject area. Further reports on residences will follow.
Residences represent investments - the more important it is, therefore, to stay on top of the investor mood. The latest publication by Jones Lang LaSalle, its "Hotel Investor Sentiment Survey" of December 2007, will help you do exactly this. Read in the PDF attachment in detail where investors are looking to spend their money in 2008.
Have fun reading the first edition of hospitalityInside.com 2008!
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Any ideas for the new year? maria@hospitalityInside.com
An extremely vivid year is about to end for hospitalityInside.com - with 50 issues, many red-hot news articles, exciting background information, and various pieces of "breaking news" resulting from the topicality of events. However, the final 2007 issue allows our team to be proud of a network that is becoming more and more a hospitalityInside "fan club". Direct communication with you, dear readers, has significantly increased this year - and not only do we keep on learning from the manifold discussions with experts, but we also benefit from your hints and impulses for our still young magazine.
In March 2008, hospitalityInside.com will celebrate its third birthday. This year brought us an enormous boost in terms of brand recognition. A lot of activities have contributed to this development: it began in March with the 2nd "ITB-Hospitality Day" we prepare in terms of content. In April/May, we spent three weeks in Dubai enjoying a mixture of business and leisure that was unusual even for us, and will result in our first readers' trip to Dubai in 2008. The impression we gained on site and the many interesting encounters inspired us to initiate a top-class special interest trip for hotel experts.
In spring and autumn, we managed to intensify our relationships toward our partners and start new ones at conferences and other events. Accordingly, I visited the Cornell European Chapter Meeting for the first time in February - and I was deeply impressed by the openness and friendliness that I met in this circle of top-level alumni. We were able to deepen our contact with Cornell in two further Chapter Meetings. Furthermore, hospitalityInside.com became a member of another highly different association in autumn: the HTNG, Hospitality Technology Next Generation, a think tank for hospitality and industry located in Chicago. This will bring us a whole variety of fascinating topics next year!
I myself was invited to several meetings and conferences to moderate or give speeches.
By the end of the year, we welcome a considerable number of new subscribers not only from the hotel sector, but also from the field of service providers and suppliers, from banks and investor circles. And the best news of all thanks to the Internet: in the meantime, hospitalityInside.com is read in 20 countries! This provides our information network with "limitless" competence.
We have used the year drawing to its close to extend and build-up our internal structure as well as to organise further projects for 2008. In 2008, we will finally introduce our "hospitalityShop", which allows you to acquire studies, analyses, books and, above all, new market analyses and company profiles. For the latter, we've already found a strategic partner.
With hospitalityShop we are about to install the third column - next to the hospitalityInside magazine and hospitalitySolutions, a website for the hospitality industry - expanding the range of information. You, dear readers, will be able to obtain various kinds of highly valuable information from clearly distinguishable areas: from a journalist, industrial or academic point of view.
Our small but highly motivated team here in Augsburg is definitely looking forward to next year - we want to make things happen again. The project calendar is filling up. I hope you are looking forward with us to many new developments and news in your information network hospitalityInside.com!
The next issue of hospitalityInside.com will be published on January 11, 2008.
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
The hotel group of Event, the German partner of Blackstone, is putting up a fierce struggle against accusations of having failed to pay commissions and wrongly held back franchise fees in the past few years. However, regarding the latter, a British court has pronounced judgment - Event has to pay. hospitalityInside.com examined the information about the business practices of Event we have received over the past few weeks and, of course, spoke with all parties involved.
In contrast, the issue of human resources does not focus on the past of the hotel industry, but on its future - with three articles, it is a focal issue today. The situation in the German-speaking countries seems actually far from being as tense as in Dubai, for example. Although the metaphor doesn't work, Dubai's expansion and lack of experts clearly indicates the biggest challenge for the service industry in the years to come. At the same time, we've asked an "outsider", the author of the bestseller "Manners", why young people lack so much upbringing. The flower-power generation is to blame. This is the simple answer of the prince from Ethiopia. He views the problems with staff from an entirely different perspective.
By the way, hospitalityInside will discuss human resources in Dubai as well, during the Special Interest Trip from May 1-5, 2008. Take a look at our starting page to learn more about our first readers' trip called "hospitality inside Dubai".
But let's get back to the current issue: after Accor propagated the new Sofitel sub brands a few weeks ago, it is now the task of the newly proclaimed brand of Pullmann to win over the awareness of the public. Simultaneously, the French explained to our Austrian friend Fred Fettner how they plan to expand in the Alpine republic at last.
Our small news are also red-hot: Hilton's Ola Ivarsson switches over to Moevenpick, a banker formerly involved with Richmond is being held in custody and Leonardo and Lindner announce their next projects...
Enjoy reading.
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Any ideas? Questions? maria@hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
A man steps down: Dorint founder Dr. Herbert Ebertz will retire from active business. His "old" Dorint is standing on new feet, but it is no longer under his influence. With this step Ebertz finishes off his life's work, one which he brought to blossom first, and then to the brink of ruin. The hotel group still exists, only half as big as before, but with a new momentum - and above all with the cool and determined Managing Director Elke Schade at the top. Her priority is security instead of pace. Enjoy reading a review about the first year of Neue Dorint GmbH.
The rich and super rich bring the luxury market two-digit growth rates. This trend will definitely continue next year as well. Therefore, we have summarised the new studies and forecasts in two "Focus" articles.
It is hard to tell the future of the health trend; but despite that, my "first day in politics" was highly interesting. The tourist experts of the SPD parliamentary group organised a conference on health economy. In January, new trends in the fields of wellness and health will also describe the newly conceived spa fair in Monaco; as hospitalityInside.com acts as media partner, you will definitely be reading about it by the end of January.
In our "Small Chains" series, we introduce to you Macrander Hotels, and in addition, you will find a lot of further short news items on the market.
I wish you a good start to a busy third Advent week.
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Questions? maria@hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
With this issue you will once more discover new names in the industry: Germany sees the next Spaniard enter the market, a British investor joins in Swiss Andermatt, while Israelis are announcing masses of hotels for all of Europe.
Even at the birthday dinner of Selektion Deutscher Luxushotels the ever higher pace resounded throughout: the Hotel Excelsior Ernst in Cologne is the only hotel of this cooperative that has not changed hands for 140 years now. Congratulations! And it still has not put on a different brand hat!
In contrast, Stefan Schoerghuber, who puts a lot of private funds into the hotel real estate of his management company of ArabellaStarwood, is now changing the brand: the Austrian Schloss Fuschl and the Jagdhof right beside it will break out of the joint venture with Starwood Hotels. General Manager Wolfgang Greiner convincingly explains the reasons for this, however, there are still rumours about Schoerghuber planning to take out further hotels from the marketing and reservation system. This would lead to a bigger question: What does Schoerghuber want? A new "Arabella" collection, his own "Luxury Collection"? What is the joint venture worth if cracks like this keep appearing? Schloss Fuschl is a flagship property within the ArabellaStarwood group.
Out of interest, our expert Martina Fidlschuster wrote another "explanatory piece" about the subprime crisis. The connection between subprime and Basel II is quite interesting!
Our article about the legal situation of hoteliers with respect to hotel evaluation portals is of similarly dry but useful character. Ever since holidaycheck & co have existed, professional hosts have been discussing how to react to one-sided opinions. hospitaltiyInside.com has the answer.
This and many other things await you this week - read for yourself!
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Your comments? maria@hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
The events of this week are a prime example of current trends: Individualisation that will soon cannibalise itself. Marriott & Schrager = Mass & Individuality. But it seems the boat's already been rocked even before the project has begun. And who plans 100 "boutique hotels", can no longer claim to offer the individual experience.
The thrust towards individuality has meanwhile become more of an obsession. Now, Wyndham too is working on a "Grand Collection". And one willingly jumps on the bandwagon with respect to the image of Savoy, Waldorf-Astroria, Oetker & Co.. Similar attempts have also been made by Accor: The chain has now divided its luxury brand Sofitel into two sub-brands - and even insiders are hard pushed to tell them apart.
After a honeymoon period, the trend is bound to end in arbitrariness and interchangeability. If all hotels are noble, none are noble. "The hotel of today is dead." This, the core statement of a current Swiss industrial study, hits the nail on the head. Here one can only expressly praise the venerable Swiss hotelier association: To mark its 125th anniversary, the association commissioned the study to be carried out by the renowned GDI institute, blissfully ignorant to the extent of the criticism the study would contain. The more refreshing then, that the association faces up to the findings and the hotel industry's problems
Praise is also deserved by Hyatt. Since the announcement of the new boutique brand Andaz months ago, it's been almost impossible to get precise information on the concept out of the USA. Bernd Chorengel, the German born President of Hyatt International, brought a little light into the dark in a spontaneous interview. The Andaz concept indeed represents a new approach - and not only polish on a rigid structure. "We are removing the cobwebs in the hotel business," Chorengel says resolutely.
A further exception is the approach of Giuseppe Statuto. The 40 year old Italian is among the leading hotel real estate investors and intends to continue investing here - without becoming a commercial locust.
The spa conference in Monaco, which many will still remember as a somewhat slow exhibition, will in January also tread new paths. The new concept under new management promises many new ideas and a forum for real knowledge exchange. hospitalityInside.com thus looks forward to being media partner for the new event. Read more!
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Questions? maria@hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
Hotels as hospices - this headline calls to attention that a hotel "as public house" can find itself unexpectedly in the spotlight. From the point of view of the industry, the Swiss hotel association, hotelleriesuisse, rightly defends itself against this form of misuse. The idea of a coffin being carried out in front of other guests is macabre indeed. But the hotel - every hotel - immediately finds itself embroiled in the very centre of ethic discussions. What recently happened in Switzerland, could easily soon happen elsewhere.
B&B hotels will also certainly be having discussions with the operators of current Tank & Rast hotels if they are to come on board as brand. The French budget chain will have to negotiate separately with each hotel individually! Whether such will in fact lead to the 34 "new B&Bs" as announced, remains to be seen. The expansion drive to the right and left of the motorway for the moment marks B&B as a motel chain. The budget chain with the word "Motel" in its name, however, is taking its hotels ever increasingly in direction city centre, just like Accor did with Etap. The guests/clients may in future perceive the budget brands more positively in the city than along motorways - unless B&B manages to balance out the roadside image with locations in other areas.
The question "what does the guest expect?" was at the centre of discussions at a conference in Innsbruck on Alpine wellness. The guest is looking for authenticity was the answer. And so we asked the Bavarian Tourism Marketing, how they defined Alpine wellness.
In wellness operations themselves, there's always room for discussion, above all between spa managers and staff. hospitalityInside.com attended a workshop organised by Best Wellness Hotels Austria which lent an ear to the day to day concerns of managers. In only two hours, it was clear what their worries were. And they were there to give each other advice.
Make your own impression before launching into new discussions!
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Questions? maria@hospitalityInside.com
Dear Insiders,
Cultures influence business. Today's issue clearly shows what it means to meet people friendly or foreign to culture.
In the meantime, Andreas Pflaum considers a brawl between Russian guests in his restaurant a few years ago an evil omen for the things he has been experiencing with his Russian investor in the past six months. The hotelier was on the verge of handing over everything to his Russian private-equity "partner". Now, the agreement is being reversed. Gladly, a new investor is already at hand - but this time, he comes from the local cultural area, from Switzerland. Meanwhile, Andreas Pflaum is fed up with "Russian business culture" for the time being.
The investment families behind the British private-equity company of Mountain Capital have probably far more sensitivity with respect to European cultures, as they have German roots themselves. At the moment, Mountain Capital is going on a shopping expedition in continental Europe - they describe their concept in this issue. The German luxury hotelier Thomas Althoff is already on board with them.
The German peculiarities sometimes lead to unexpected trends. For example, the trend that foreign investors conclude lease agreements if they do not have to take over responsibility for the employees. We tried to find out the reasons for this.
Across all cultures, Christian Jagodzinski has been looking for his investment gap: based in Miami, the man from Germany realises a villa concept for the super rich. Obviously with great success.
In Europe, the countries are increasingly influencing each other. Accordingly, Spain has just paved the way for a current verdict about the permissibility of age limits.
A lot of dry topics today, but hopefully "lightly served", as you are probably used to from our team ....
Last but not least: During this weekend, the Cornell Hotel Society German Chapter will meet in Dresden, one week later the AlpAdria Chapter will meet in Merano, Italy. Consequently, our related website hospitalitySolutions.info describes details of the most connected alumni association in the United States. If you wish to join the meetings in future, please refer to the contacts mentioned.
I wish you a good week without any cultural troubles,
Yours, Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor in Chief
Your comment? maria@hospitalityInside.com