Dear Insider,

The best first: On Monday, 100 guests celebrated the opening of Rosewood Schloss Fuschl in Salzburger Land, majestically enthroned above Lake Fuschl. Almost every one of the 98 rooms has a lake view, and 245 of the planned 270 employees are already in their posts and looking after the guests. With this, the ultra-luxury operator from Hong Kong takes the Munich-based Schörghuber Group and Arabella Hospitality together with it on its journey into the international resort business. And from now on, the Schloss will take locals on a trip to the new Sea Club, right on the lake. It is to become "the Saint Tropez on Lake Fuschl".

"We are collectively in love [with this hotel]," CEO Florian Schörghuber said, describing the special magic of this place. His mother Alexandra and Rosewood President Radha Arora already seemed like good friends. After some less fortunate years, Fuschl is now embarking on a new success story. I brought you the details and my own inspiring photos

We remain in Austria: The ÖHV and Deloitte were able to read a lot from the latest "Tourism Barometer", but none of it was good: Despite higher revenues in 2023, the results of the hotel companies are below those of 2022. Costs are slowly ruining the companies. Hotels are more pessimistic about their situation than ever before. 

Pierre & Vacances Center Parcs, on the other hand, sees itself as being on the road to relaxation. The parent company escaped insolvency almost two years ago and is now expanding again, mostly in France and Spain. A positive signal at the start of the summer. 

In Paris, the - exorbitant - hotel rates for the Summer Olympics, which begin on 26 July, are currently falling. For event professionals, this is a kind of "normal calm before the storm". But: This time, drastically fewer tourists are travelling to the Seine. 

According to the Hotrec study, the industry throughout Europe is still fighting fiercely against the dominance of the OTAs. Across Europe, almost 30% of all overnight stays were booked via this route in 2023. In our "Digi News" we have collected more colourful reports from the digital world, and about sustainability we have impressions of a new conference in Austria. 

With the second quarter coming to an end, many hotel staff are changing jobs again, and today's VIP news is accordingly varied and long. The same applies to the News Mix from the market - no sign of a summer break.  

In Switzerland, the land of nature lovers, of all places, the hotel association does not support the announced biodiversity initiative. For rural accommodation establishments, this could make projects and further developments more difficult in the future and weaken these hotels among the competition. You can find this interesting report on our - publicly accessible - Marketplace, as well as the confirmed finding that Germans are once again being drawn abroad more this year. On the other hand, Frankfurt am Main attracts the most MICE guests from Asia-Pacific, followed by London and Amsterdam. 

If you've had enough of everything and just want to hide away somewhere quiet, we suggest the slube mini-hotel: a small tower that can be set up within an hour. Take a look at our page 1. 

Till next Friday! 

Ihre Maria Pütz-Willems
Editor in Chief