News & Stories

Tel Aviv. The Israeli hotel chain Fattal Hotels - as already reported at the end of June - is now definitely taking over twelve hotels with more than 3,100 beds in Israel. In doing so, David Fattal, the founder of Fattal, was able to accomplish a clever move to further extend the brand Leonardo Hotels and become the leading chain.

Frankfurt. Even if only 15% of the transaction volume of the previous year was realised in the first half of 2009, the hotel asset class is still on the investors' purchase list. The focus is clearly on the budget hotels, followed by 3-star hotels and by the 4-star segment.

Frankfurt. The German hotel investment market reported volume of around 90 million EUR in the first half of 2009. Only four individual transactions were reported by the end of June. In portfolios, no transactions were registered. The slump in hotel investment volume stands at 83% and is drastic, Jones Lang LaSalle confirms.

Frankfurt. With newly designed lobbies, InterCityHotels, the 3-star brand of the Steigenberger Hotel Group, is trying to catch up with existing smart concepts of 2 and 3-star hotels on the German market.

Klagenfurt. Bayern LB wants to stave off its tourist shares and concentrate on its core business as a bank again. In particular, this also affects an extensive hotel portfolio of the Hypo Group Alpe Adria subsidiary in Carinthia. The sale of Capella Hotel Schloss Velden at Lake Woerth is thus being newly evaluated amongst others.

Brussels. The results of the latest survey of the European timeshare industry are dominated by a high degree of satisfaction among timeshare owners. The last survey of the industry was carried out in 2001. However, the new survey examines only 12 instead of all 25 EU member states.

Bern. "The Swiss hotel industry keeps investing despite the financial crisis." This was the tenor of Swiss Deluxe Hotels' press conference at Le Mirador Kempinski in Le Mont-Pèlerin. In order to maintain a leading role on an international level, SDH will invest more than 700 million CHF in the next two years. Furthermore, a strong trend towards medical wellness can be observed.

Moscow. The Moscow city government has decided to take matters into its own hands and finance the first phase of construction of a more than 1 billion USD development on the site of the former Rossiya Hotel, a famous property with 3,000 rooms from the 1960s.

Tel Aviv. The Israeli Fattal Group is in negotiations with the owners of 12 hotels in Israel, of which four hotels are operated by Starwood and four by Accor. The deal will be worth almost one billion NIS.

Bielefeld. The Oetker Group has sold the Park Hotel Vitznau on Switzerland's Vierwaldstaetter Lake. Last Friday, the contract was signed; buyer of the luxury hotel is an Austrian entrepreneur with experience in the hotel industry.