Dear Insiders,
Asian Peninsula Hotels currently count only nine properties, yet wherever they announce expansion plans, Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Ritz-Carlton & Co. sit up and take note. They know this small chain with its extremely high quality standards and feel its strength every day. Peninsula is considered to be one of the most innovative luxury hotel chains of all. It was them who introduced touch panels in guest rooms and who provided the nail varnish dryer for their female guests. Now, Paris awaits Peninsula. They have announced the opening date for their first European hotel: August 1, 2014.
COO Peter Borer, who has been with Peninsula for 32 years, is already thinking further though - about the second European hotel in London... I met Mr Borer, originally from Switzerland, and his new GM for the Peninsula Paris, in Munich this week and discovered some interesting details on the hotels as well as the extreme innovative pressure the company voluntarily takes on.
At the same time, my colleague Baerbel Schwertfeger was underway in Hong Kong. There, she took a look at the hotel group's innovation workshop. Peninsula is the only hotel chain in the world with its own research and technology department. She felt as if she'd walked into a James Bond film with 25 technical tinkerers...
Falkensteiner Hotels is also working on the right "road map" ... After a long quiet period, the hotel group again spoke publically about its strategy: It now targets Germany and Italy. It also plans on introducing a medical spa concept. No less interesting this week is the contribution from our Labour Lawyer Joachim Jungbluth, who comments on the judgement from the German Federal Labour Court on overtime.
Starwood Hotels has also presented the new lobby design for its Le Méridien Hotels and the InterCity Berlin opened as the new flagship hotel for the Steigenberger Group's brand. In Austria, HRS attempts to put pressure on hoteliers and last but not least, conference hotels and conference centres are finally also beginning to recover in the US, and the Cornell Hotel Society announced its next meetings for the German and EMEA Chapter. – The full editorial…
