News & Stories

Munich. This coming Tuesday, Germany's biggest hotel consultancy firm, Treugast, will present the new "Treugast Institute of Applied Hospitality Sciences". With this, Managing Director Stephan Gerhard further extends the firm's core business area of consultancy and operations. At the very centre of the institute's academic activities is hotel real estate.

Hong Kong. As of 2008, the Asian hotel group Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts is to operate a hotel in Miami, followed by a luxury hotel in Chicago as of 2009. This will be the Asian hotel company's first ventures in the USA.

Kuala Lumpur. Russia's emerging middle-class is driving annual growth rates of more than 7% in outbound travel, according to a new Pacific Asia Travel Association report entitled Total Tourism Russia.

Frankfurt/M  . Security and service will gain importance for business travellers. The differences between the nations are surprising. While Internet access in hotels was most important for Americans, Europeans largely preferred a complimentary breakfast.

White Plains. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and its W Hotels division revealed at the Phoenix Lodging Conference the official name and concept details for its new brand in the select-service hotel category: "aloft". Recently, the company had been introducing the brand under "XYZ".

Munich. By the end of 2004, everything looked fine for Germany's hotel industry. With a growth rate of 4.7 percent regarding RevPar, Germany achieved the second best result in Europe. A brand new hotel benchmark study shows, however, that this growth in RevPar was only at 1.2 percent in mid 2005.

New Orleans. The closed hotel count in Louisiana is 160 hotels, in Mississippi, 93 hotels and in Alabama, 33 hotels, reports Lodging Econometrics. A total of 45,832 rooms have reported service interruptions and damage so severe that they are no longer accepting reservations from the traveling public.

Wiesbaden. Foreign tourists visiting Germany in 2004 most often stayed in big cities. And the trend has become stronger. In July 2005 the number of overnight stays attributable to foreign tourists once again increased in comparison to the previous year. All in all, German tourism in July 2005 was on the up.

Hong Kong. On September 8, the Four Seasons Hong Kong opened with its 399 rooms and suites. With that, the company once again sets foot in the booming economic metropolis four years after its retreat from the Regent Hong Kong which it had operated until then.

Basle. Tens years ago the young Greek Stelios Haji-Ionnou hit the skies with his discount airline easyJet. Now he's landed with the first easyHotel in Basle. The bed costs 24 CHF per night. Staff were trained in two days.