News & Stories
Dresden. Since its founding eleven years ago, Macrander Hotels have taken over four hotels in Germany thus belonging to the minor operating companies in the country. The enterprise definitely has expansion plans, but they follow the previous pace. Nevertheless, the hotels' results are absolutely respectable.
Augsburg. Foreign investors are tending increasingly towards lease agreements in Germany. One of the reasons: Lease agreements free investors from responsibility for employees. Martina Fidlschuster, Managing Director of Hotour Management Consultancy in Frankfurt, referred to the trend during a discussion round at the Expo Real in Munich. hospitalityInside.com took a closer look.
Brussels. Online hotel evaluation portals involve both risks and chances. In order to make them a serious instrument for providers like hoteliers and travellers, the European umbrella organisation of HOTREC recently issued a position paper to about 50 portal operators. It includes ten principles that shall help to protect the industry from manipulations and unfair evaluations. Towards hospitalityInside.com, two major portal operators both give positive feedback in a spontaneous statement concerning this paper.
Munich. Hans-Dieter Schiller is back in Choice Hotels' towers and has returned to his former office in Munich. The experienced operations man will now actively steer the expansion of Choice Hotels International in Europe. And the big news: Choice is now ready to invest.
Moscow. The Russian company Heliopark first made headlines in Germany in 2006 when it bought up the Steigenberger Bad Hotel Zum Hirsch in Baden-Baden only to close it for renovation works. In summer 2007, it assumed management of the Hotel Quellenhof, also in Baden-Baden. The Hirsch now stands shortly before reopening, further takeovers in Western Europe are on the cards.
Hendersonville/London. The American datahouse Smith Travel Research, and Deloitte, London have signed a letter of intent to combine their Non-North American hotel benchmarking businesses. But STR is already linked to The Bench, London - Deloitte's competitor.
Worms. As of this month, Prof. Dr. Klaus Fischer holds the office of Professor for "Travel Technology" at the University of Applied Sciences in Worms. The professorship is the first of its kind in Germany.
