News & Stories

Paris. Exactly one month after inputting a 2% extra tax on hoteliers overnights above 200 Euro, and curiously few months only before presidential elections, the French government moves back regarding hospitality industry.

Erkrath/Munich. The German hotel and catering trade industry has stabilised again last year. If one of the most bitter years for the industry was in 2009, the last year showed a slightly positive trend.

Hamburg. With currently seven hotels in Germany and Cyprus, Columbia Hotels & Resorts have become a small chain. The portfolio comprises hotels of the 4 to 5-star superior category. The marketing focus concentrates on cooking performance and wellness. Therefore, the joy is all the greater about the most recent stars. Concerning figures, the group remains very reserved.

Koblenz/Frankfurt. The tension between real expansion and quality has long since been an issue for Franz-Josef Koenig. The quality expert can only sit back in amazement as hotel chains continue to announce new projects whilst at the same time failing to keep abreast of maintenance and upgrades in existing properties. A hotel which is only five years old will already have problems keeping up on today's markets: The reason lies in the strong "hardware" competition with other newer hotels and well as in the ever intensifying battle of prices and distribution channels. Yet hotel operators still choose to deal only with the symptoms and not the causes. And so Franz-Josef Koenig, Managing Director of Koenig-Strategie GmbH asks: Do anonymous hotel checks make any sense at all? Romantik Hotels & Restaurants, a consortium, operates a dual system with mystery checks for the hotel and an audit of the wellness area.

London. From this year on, The Leading Hotels of the World will raise its minimum standards required for quality checks by two percent each year. Hotels failing for the third time will be excluded from the association, which currently has 423 members. From 2013, this could mean quite a drain at Leading Hotels. Trent Walsh and his team of Leading Quality Assurance in London have been responsible for the quality checks for 12 years. The Leading Hotels of the World are the biggest customer of the quality-assurance institute, but not the only one. In a discussion with Maria Puetz-Willems, Trent Walsh explains how a quality boost could be achieved at Leading and in general, what he thinks about quality in the luxury hotel sector all across the world.

Paris. French hoteliers were frustrated after Sarkozy’s government applied earlier this month a new 2% tax on overnights above 200 Euro. But furious they are since Monday after French Prime Minister, Francois Fillon, announced plans to increase the reduced VAT rate from 5.5% to 7%, effective from January 2012. In contrast, the Swiss would like to cease theVAT for one year.

Paris. Since Tuesday, 1 November 2011, French hoteliers offering night rates equal or above 200 Euro have to pay the controversial 2% tax that the French parliament voted for last September

Paris. Desperate to find money wherever it is, the French government doesn`t know anymore where to look for. After failing taxing theme parcs like Disneyland Paris, looks like it has found a new target: upscale hoteliers.

Alpbach. Are hotel chains steamrolling the private hotel industry? Experts generally deny such claims, but in a discussion in Austria, they then came up with numerous reasons why private hoteliers could be displaced by the larger chains. In terms of performance, private hoteliers are currently doing well, though the chains allegedly enjoy certain privileges at the municipal level. A few new chain hotels won`t be able to change Austria`s heavily family-dominated hotel structure so quickly, though a discussion between consultant Jakob Edinger and hotelier Erich Falkensteiner touched on fundamental differences and challenges. The Austrian Hotel and Tourism Bank provided figures for comparison.

Schwelm/Wupptertal. After a successful career as an operator of nursing homes, the Lohbeck family from Schwelm dedicated itself to the world of hospitality. In the meantime, a total of nine individual German 4 and 5-star hotels are combined under the name of Dr. Lohbeck Privathotels. The group’s expansion has not come to a halt yet. It is still on the lookout for some new gems.