News & Stories

Warsaw. Poland's hotel market has witnessed continuous growth for several years, with 2015 experiencing an increase of 79% in hotel supply compared to 2006, totaling 2,316 hotels. This attracts international investors.

Rome. L'Agenzia del Demanio, the Italian State property office, has just assigned the first nine lighthouses included in the project called ValorePaeseFari.

Hamburg. The German hotel market is booming. Not only in the country's most desirable cities. An increasing number of investors are now going after B, C and even D locations. Smaller cities offering solid tour-ist activities and/or good infrastructure are becoming increasingly attractive. C locations have increased their transaction volume in the past two years by roughly 150 percent. Today, Alexander Trobitz, Head of Hotel Services of BNP Paribas Real Estate, explains this trend in a guest article.

Frankfurt. Germany remains the most attractive hotel market in Europe, investors said in a survey measuring investors' sentiment. Also, investments in Germany currently increase whereas Europe and UK report declines. And: Concepts of Airbnb & Co may have been overstated.

Gdansk. UBM Development AG has made a move into hotel operations business. It wants to get closer to its assets itself and to control them. The 43 hotels in the European portfolio - and all future hotels - are bundled into the newly established subsidiary "UBMhotels". The product developer and investor based in Vienna hopes that it will grow faster this way - also by restructuring the hotels of other owners. UBM Chief Operating Officer Martin Loecker explained the details last week in Gdansk. There, UBM and its partners presented their most recent project for the popular Granary Island in the middle of Gdank's picturesque old town.

Greenwich. Starwood Capital Group and Brookfield Property Partners have announced the sale of nine hotels from the Interhotel portfolio to FDM Management, a joint venture of Foncières des Regions and institutional investors. The German company Event Hotels now also holds a minority stake in these hotels.

Doha/New York. The latest rumor from the international hotel real estate market concerns the Qatar Investment Authority, which is presumably about to acquire the iconic St. Regis New York and St. Regis San Francisco from Starwood. Starwood is going to sell even more properties – on time before the official take-over by Marriott? An ironic situation as Starwood has failed to sell assets for the past 3 years.

Dubai. The hotel construction boom in Dubai is slowly waning, though for the time being, the push is still on for the next mega event: After the mega towers Burj Al Arab and Burj Khalifa, now the focus will be on the EXPO 2020 reminding the world exactly where the powerhouse of the Middle East is located. The desert still offers a lot of space for new mega parks - and new ones have once again been announced. The city's core is becoming tighter though, squeezing in ever more properties between Dubai International Airport, the Business Bay district and the beach event district Jumeirah. Of the new hotel openings in recent months, hospitalityInside.com has visited the new Four Seasons in the Financial Center, the new Steigenberger Hotel in Business Bay and the Rove, the first 3-star brand owned by the Arabian mega-developer Emaar. We've also been thinking about the new wave of entertainment parks.

Milan. The Italian hospitality real estate market is back on track, even if the pre-crisis peak is still far away. The market now sees the highest investment volume registered since 2008. Despite the dearth of investment grade assets, last year's transaction volume in the Italian real estate hospitality segment exceeded 800 million euros, including portfolio investments. Banks have started to clean their books and a new fund has been launched to explicitly attract more international investors. JLL Hotels & Hospitality's traditional yearly analysis on the country market draws a positive picture, substantially in line with the figures registered by the national tourism sector.

Amsterdam. The current M&As will generate a butterfly effect on businesses in the Netherlands and mostly in Amsterdam. An investment seminar in Amsterdam brought together 120 industry experts to talk about the European hotel market development and the impact of capital, transactions, mergers and the uncertainty of brands. In addition, about the latest ban on hotel development in Amsterdam imposed by the municipality. The Netherland's biggest disadvantage: The country is too small to attract big deals.