News & Stories

Stuttgart. Accor Germany has now digitalised a complete Ibis-Hotel. Together with the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, the hotel chain has created an entire hotel in virtual reality and in so doing made a few interesting discoveries.

Zurich. In the course of its press conference last week, Hotelleriesuisse explained its revised star classification, emphasised the collaboration with Switzerland Tourism and displayed its disapproval of the newly launched hotel assessment system of the "Gastrosuisse" host association. The Helvetian star wars continue.

Frankfurt/M. A scientific study initiated by the purchasing company of Progros deals with purchasing in the German hotel market. The survey comes with sobering results, but it also identifies potential for optimisation and provides numerous recommendations. In February, the beginnings were already presented at the "topsupply" congress in Leipzig. Now the study can be bought.

Frankfurt/M. No later than when they appeared jointly with 78 hotels in Germany, France and Switzerland at this year's RDA workshop in Cologne has LSF Hotels become a little bit more popular. Hidden behind this name are hotels of the Texan Lone Star Fund. They manage hotels under several brand names and even have a separate franchise concept for Europe in the F&B sector.

Frankfurt/M The Success Group based in Frankfurt am Main will soon operate twelve hotels. Objective for the group is to win more hotel group character through partnerships with big brand names such as Express by Holiday Inn, Hilton and Accor. The group is also active in clinics, rehabilitation and health care facilities.

Munich. Treugast Solutions Group, once exclusively active within Germany, has meanwhile grown to become an internationally renowned consultation firm. Today, its activities can be divided into four main departments. But Treugast is presently in the process of a transformation, with the once largely academic firm now taking on a more active role as attention begins to focus on the Far East and the USA.

Hohenheim. Employers suffered a daily loss of 15 minutes to working time during the Football World Cup as employees discussed results once again relived the highlights of the match. According to one study, however, these losses were compensated by the economic plus resulting from the event.

Atlanta. As the US hotel industry continues to enjoy strong uptrends in occupancy and rate in its third year of recovery, there are increasing signs that the pace of increases in certain areas on the expense side of the ledger is gaining momentum. According to a recent study, from 2001 to 2005, hotel maintenance expenses grew 18.3 percent. This is nearly 33 percent greater than the pace of growth for all other hotel operating costs during this same period. 

London. With a "franchise calculator", the HVS International consultancy firm aims at making franchise companies more calculable. The tool is even freely available via the Internet. It was primarily designed for hotel owners and developers. However, these should definitely exercise caution: Choice and Best Western Hotels tested the franchise calculator announcing it to be unsuitable for Europe.