Dear Readers/Users,

When business hotel chains dare to enter the resort business, this always stirs attention. InterContinental Hotels, that only have five city hotels of the top brand in Germany, have now opened their first resort hotel in the Bavarian Alps. However, this attracted attention in the world's headlines even before the operator was known. It is located in Berchtesgaden, next to the place where Adolf Hitler once spent his holidays.

The political opinions regarding this project diverge greatly. The managers of the medium-sized hotels nearby are annoyed to an extent because now, in the middle of this structurally weak region, an expensive luxury hotel has emerged that only a few people benefit from. Apart from that, the local hotel managers are struggling against massive competition from Austria. The Austrian top resort hotels offer an excellent price-performance ratio and are only a few kilometres away.

The InterContinental Resort Berchtesgaden provokes sentiments and opinions of all kinds. We have looked at some of the facets: we will examine its positioning with respect to the Nazi history, its questionable design, its luxury spa and the mega PR campaign that is to change its image. And we have asked the InterConti headquarters about future structures of the group...

This is the main topic of this issue. Nevertheless, you, dear readers, will find a number of other interesting pieces of news and possible parallels to your own work in a hotel. How exactly does your sales department answer e-mail enquiries? Read what a "mystery check" of tourism locations has exposed. How well is your "best price" guarantee accepted by the customers? See for yourself what experience your chain colleagues have made with this instrument.

The button "Current Issue" in the left menu bar opens a short headline overview that quickly tells you what articles are new in hospitalityInside.com. Further modules for even more comfortable surfing are underway. Our "baby" is only five weeks old, after all.

Enjoy reading and surfing!

Yours Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor-in-Chief


Please, contact me by: maria@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Readers/Users,

German hoteliers tend to say that financing is easier for their Austrian colleagues: due to OEHT, a special supporter bank for tourism businesses which grants low interest loans. Since last autumn, it has offered mezzanine capital to small and medium-sized enterprises with low equity capital. But only two businesses have profited from this so far. OEHT also has its regulations. It is no longer necessary for anybody to be envious... Our second investment-orientated subject straightens out "prejudices" too. The contracts decide on the valuation of a hotel property. The methodology is only of minor significance.

Every new issue of hospitalityInside, dear Readers and Users, focuses on new little aspects. Knowledge about financing and investments becomes increasingly important for hotel owners and managers as well as their being acquainted with the online jungle. Over and over, we would like to give you a helping hand and show you the way out of the maze.

Thus, it is even better that hotel chains like Best Western Hotels, are sharing their online know-how with you and us. This issue includes their checklist and recommendations of how to find the right provider of online reservation systems.

This and other subjects are included in our new issue: You will find articles on the new customer strategy of Amadeus e-Travel, the quality-oriented expansion of the Asian Peninsula Hotels, the plans of the up-and-coming tourism country Serbia, the changes in German congress centres and hotels as well as the latest market surveys.

Enjoy reading and surfing!

Yours Maria Puetz-Willems
Editor-in-Chief

Please, contact me by: maria@hospitalityInside.com 

Dear Readers/Users,

The brand will be the crucial factor in deciding about the success or downfall of a hotel group on the market. Gabriele Burgio, executive board member of the Spanish NH Hoteles, explicitly emphasized this at the Berlin Hotel Investment Forum two weeks ago. Yesterday he announced the purchase of the first hotel in London. Now, he has launched his brand new on the market.

Many, far too many hotel groups still define their brand by location presence. Few, too few think about the significance of their brand in the minds of their employees. In this way, they give away loads of motivation and turnover. This is what the research institute Maritz demonstrates in this issue: it has examined the links between brand effect and employee motivation.

Based on this, the discussion on brands becomes an issue that probes the subject area of human resources. The hotel manager is the bridge between employees and guests. But what happens if the hotel manager himself lacks motivation or even suffers from burnout syndrome? Then he needs a coach. But this topic is also touchy. Today, hospitalityInside provides a - discreet - impulse in this direction by introducing telephone coaching to you. This could become a chance for hotel managers and guests likewise. Have you ever thought about a "business" or "wellness coach" for your hotel?

Today, hospitalityInside focuses on human resources. After all, hotel business is still a "people`s business". That is something this industry shares with journalism. And this is why this young magazine introduces two further "human" columns in this issue. "V.I.P." as a synonym for encounters with "very impressive people" and "hospitalityTalk", a column which allows critical unconventional heads to speak out.

Take part; let us know what you think! Give this young medium new ideas and food for thought. There are "people" behind the scenes of this online magazine, too.

Yours Maria Puetz-Willems

Editor-in-Chief


Please write to me: maria@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Readers/Users,

From today’s issue on, hospitalityInside.com is exclusively there for YOU – the subscribers of our online magazine. This is your chance to actively participate in building up this young portal and contribute to the issues that are brought up here! In future, we will inform you each Friday anew. You will, of course, receive breaking news immediately and via extra e-mail.

hospitalityInside is now two weeks young – so to speak, it’s still a “baby”. We will be feeding it regularly with new articles and current news and hope that it will not only gain weight quickly, but also gain in importance. Naturally we will still have to adjust and change certain things. Your ideas regarding content and structure are most welcome. Please do not hesitate to write me directly.

Bit by bit, we will open up further editorial columns or introduce completely new ones, such as “VIP” – “Very Impressive People”. As journalists, we meet quite a number of impressive people over the year, people you know superficially, but don’t know any details about. What do they like and what are their passions? What drives them to do their job the way they do it? To give you a little foretaste, I have placed two portraits of wellknown entrepreneurs I met in the past years in this new column.

With today’s issue, we also open up the people and company databases. They too will constantly be expanding. Both will only be accessible to subscribers. In addition you will find an event calendar listing the most important meetings and conferences of the industry; a link will forward you to the organizer’s websites.  

As regards current content, my colleague Susanne Stauss and I have further edited issues that were discussed at the ITB and the Hotel Investment Forum Berlin. For example, some American chains have dedicated themselves to cleaning up their home market – after all, a compliment to the standards and levels of European hotels. Please read more about this in the articles on Cendant and Best Western. We also collected interesting voices of the industry during the annual Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin.

If you like the approach of hospitalityInside.com, please recommend us to your colleagues. This magazine will only be successful if the industry is willing to back high-quality content.

We look forward to writing for YOU!

Yours Maria Puetz-Willems

Editor-in-Chief

Please write to me via: maria@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Readers & Users,

One week ago, this new online magazine got off the ground right on time for the ITB - young, dynamic and with an ambitious goal: We want to show you that there are issues related to the hotel industry that also concern other industries, such as the investment business. hospitalityInside.com is connecting businesses that otherwise do not know much about one another... We are crossing borders regarding content as well as language - that is why our magazine is published in German and English.

But our ambition goes far beyond that, which brings me round to pointing out expressly: hospitalityInside.com is a purely editorial magazine that aims at offering you the possibility to gather extensive information. There are no excuses like "We have no space left" or "We cannot publish any critical texts because our best advertising customers are involved in this story."

Such negative developments with respect to journalism have motivated me to establish this magazine and to give you an unfiltered overview of the market. hospitalityInside is "your licence to read an unbiased statement". You are welcome to actively participate in the production of our contents! This is not an empty promise but a genuine invitation to you.

Of course this fresh online magazine is still suffering from a few technical handicaps. Here and there, we still have a bit of bumpiness while surfing. Our IT staff is trying to eliminate these uneven patches as fast as possible.

I can only say: Become a hospitalityInsider! Become a subscriber as of 25 March. That is when we unlock the entire content. People and company databases, event schedules, further services and editorial sections. They all have one thing in common: they contribute to shedding light on the hospitality industry from all sides.

Look inside! Of course, we offer corporate rates to interested firms and associations. Simply contact us via office@hospitalityinside.com or write to me personally via maria@hospitalityinside.com.

Yours Maria Puetz-Willems

Editor-in-Chief

Dear Readers/Users,

The international hotel industry is optimistic again as business is growing. Meanwhile, the "targeted attack" on the customer is being planned behind the scenes.

"Two years ago we didn`t have any money to replace flower arrangements at the ITB booths," says a Ritz-Carlton representative, "now, we are rolling in money." The hotel giants are strongly driving forward their expansion. Only Peninsula seems satisfied with being "the smallest group". It`s becoming obvious that the gap between mass and quality is becoming ever wider. The hotel companies, however, apply only one standard: that of the customer. Thus, waves of customer relationship are reaching sales and marketing offices. Even investment companies like DIFA are introducing customer cards for its own hotel properties.

But funding and value of properties are looming over everything like a sword of Damocles. On the one hand, the Fairmont Plaza New York is going to be closed down, on the other hand, Ritz-Carlton is building the world`s most expensive hotel in Tokyo.

All this could be heard at this year's ITB in Berlin that closed its doors two days ago. Today you can read the most important news; detailed background information will follow within the next few weeks. During the fair, my colleague Susanne Stauss and I had more than 60 appointments and kept our ears pricked up on the market for you.

We give you all the information we obtained at hospitalityInside.com. Our launch at the ITB was a complete success: international hotel managers are enthusiastic about our concept of current affairs and plenty of background information. The first subscriptions were ordered even before the actual launch. We`ve received many compliments for the international, bilingual approach in reporting and for the openness of this strictly editorial magazine.

And that`s how it should continue in future. Take the opportunity to discuss with the qualified editors and experts of this magazine und simply recommend us ...

I am looking forward to a lively exchange.

Yours Maria Puetz-Willems

Dear Users and Readers,

The world’s biggest marketplace for information on the tourism industry – the ITB 2005 Berlin – is the ideal environment for the launch of this new, international online magazine. Welcome to hospitalityInside! We bring a new perspective to hotel business reporting. Why? Because we are not a common newsletter which borrows information from publications that already exist in order to spread it as fast as possible. We go deeper.

hospitalityInside provides breaking news and background at the same time. Professional editors do the research for you. And in doing so, they are independent of sponsor or advertising obligations.

Trust us: hospitalityInside provides qualified content for you. Thanks to our independency, we are able to give certain subjects a transparency others would avoid. This is your and our chance. We don’t hesitate to ask critical questions on your behalf with impunity. Tell us what you want to know and we will search for the answer.

As your service for specialized information offering valuable information on hotel business and investment, marketing, research and other topics, we are able to connect the “hospitality industry” with its business partners. This is also new. hospitalityInside is not celebrating the industry itself, but discussing its current issues critically and objectively.

Our target group is the industry’s top executives. And because they are travelling and in need of current information wherever they are in the world, we publish only online.

We tell you who does what where when why and how! We are “inside” ourselves. My colleague Susanne Stauss and I belong to the leading specialised journalists for hotel business in Germany . For more than 20 years we have been observing the industry and how it has been influenced from all over the world. We know that certain trends that start at one end of the world might influence the other as early as tomorrow. We have become acquainted with international styles of management and other continents. In short, we know what we and you are talking about.

The ITB ends after only five days. Within a matter of hours, new and old business partners and friends are separated again. hospitalityInside remains. From any computer in the world, you are able to log in into this new pool of information and see what your colleagues and business partners are doing at the moment. 

We are pleased to welcome you to the circle of “hospitalityInsiders”! Our first edition will show you where and how we set our priorities. There are still some sections unfilled as we do not want to burden you with well-known or trivial information. Our databases are reserved for our annual subscribers. Therefore, there are only examples in this edition. 

hospitalityInside is a network and networks are growing together. You are welcome to make your contribution and let us know about your ideas and what subjects you are interested in. Every Thursday, you will read new and fascinating articles. Until March 17, 2005, this portal remains open for everybody. For testing.

Log yourself in, recommend us to your colleagues and partners. We are looking forward to your feedback. Please send me an e-mail! I will answer you personally.

Yours

Maria Puetz-Willems

Editor-in-Chief