News & Stories

Paris. The "Booster project" has been causing a commotion at AccorHotels for months. Now, it stands shortly before completion: From 1 July 2017, AccorHotels and AccorInvest will act as completely separate companies, and until investors for AccorInvest are found, they will both operate as 100-percent subsidiaries of Accor SA. For this, the formal requirements have now been created.

Milan. In Italy, the hospitality industry is finally in the spotlight – thanks also to the decreasing profitability of more traditional real estate assets. Several influential and big asset management companies and hotel groups, new kids on the block as well as established players, recently gathered at a round table in Milan organized by the Master of Tourism Economy division of Bocconi University, in cooperation with Confindustria Alberghi and Horwath HTL. The discussion followed Horwath HTL's presentation of its "Hotels & Chains report" and focused on Italian hotel investment scenarios. The industry is learning: splitting assets and operations, initiating funds and watching properties to achieve profitability.

London. Europe has seen an upturn in the availability of hotel financing due to low interest rates and strong performance, according to the annual "European Hotel Lending Survey".

Munich. Investments in the real estate sector are currently experiencing a veritable boom. Outside Germany – in particular in the US and in Asia – Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs for short, are very much in demand. They shape the face of the real estate markets, providing a transparent and simple investment vehicle for indirect investments in hotels, offices or shopping centres and with attractive returns too. In the US, this vehicle is also popular in the hotel industry. In Germany though, investors have difficulty with this special form of real estate stock which represents a sort of stock-market listed real estate portfolio. Beatrix Boutonnet explains.

Frankfurt. More and more investors are placing their chips on the asset class "hotels" in their search for yield. The former niche product has in recent years evolved into an established product - driven by falling returns and a lack of opportunity in classic real estate. Yet as before, only those investors with corresponding insider knowledge are happy with hotels. This fact is meanwhile well-known. At the annual conference of the Federal Association of Real Estate Investment Experts in Frankfurt, even high-calibre experts warned of the end of the general cycle in the sector.

Stockholm/Amsterdam. When it comes to investing abroad, China is "a big spender". According to the Chinese Minister of Commerce, the country's investments in global markets in the nonfinancial sector surged by 53.3% year on year to reach 145.96 billion dollars between January and October 2016, already surpassing the total for 2015 of about 121.4 billion dollars. A fair share of these investments concerns real estate and hospitality industry. Now China is about to set new rules for outbound investments, it was heard. With hospitalityInside.com, three hospitality experts share their opinion about the Chinese hunger for investments overseas, their strategic thoughts, their non-communicative attitude, the culture clash, and labor: Professor Dr Wolfgang Georg Arlt, Director at COTRI who has 30 years of experience working with Chinese partners; Jileen Loo, Director International Capital Markets at CBRE Hotels Limited in London, and Cornelia Kausch, Head of Development at Pandox Hotels.

Augsburg. Is your hotel real estate located in Germany? No? Then you're missing out. "Located in Germany" appears to be worth a lot of late, more than in the rest of Europe. Valuation multiples soar. At the same time, complaints of greedy price-inflating bidding processes are impossible to miss. The entire scene is also driven by geopolitical factors, recent election results and persistently low interest rates. As the year draws to a close, real estate scouts are becoming increasingly breathless as they race from deal to deal. Renowned buyers and vendors, consultants and brokers give their responses.

Cologne. The long and arduous restructuring process for the German Dorint Hotels & Resorts is now entering its final phase: The close web of relations between Dorint Hotels and the underlying funds of the parent company E&P is being systematically picked apart. Dirk Iserlohe, Managing Partner of E&P Holding based in Cologne, has established HONESTIS AG - together with new investors and a new company structure. In the following interview with hospitalityInside.com, he speaks comprehensively and with figures on the plans and details of the restructuring. "HONESTIS represents a clear 'cut' away from the prior connection between operator and lessee," he says. "I will continue to shore up the market position of Dorint Hotels & Resorts in the 4-star full-service conference hotel sector in German-speaking Europe and will not be distracted from this goal - from 2017 with HONESTIS AG - by anything or by anyone."

Vienna. On 20 September 2016, a neutral crowdfunding platform went into operation for Austrian tourism: www.we4tourism.at. Since levels of equity in the hospitality sector are low, the Basel III reforms, which have introduced a barrier to necessary investment, have given rise to alternative forms of finance for Austria's tourism industry. The new form of finance has become possible thanks to the Alternative Finance Act, which entered into force in September 2015. A number of trailblazers have already used crowdfunding for tourism projects, both before and immediately after the introduction of the new law. Here, not everyone acts with as much security and as successfully as Harry's Home though, a company with hotels in Munich, Graz, Linz, Dornbirn and, from 2018, also in Zurich.

Amsterdam. Uber, Airbnb, etc…has the business model of these companies reached its limit? Financial results of both entities show an increasing number of bookings but constant losses. Keeping market shares costs a lot, so do drivers' subsidies for Uber and legal actions and new regulations for Airbnb.