News & Stories
Florence. Starhotels was born in 1980 thanks to a entrepreneurial intuition of the Italian building contractor Ferruccio Fabri, who still controls the company which is run by his daughter Elisabetta Fabri today. This partnership results in a successful marriage between the spirit of a strong family-based enterprise and the pragmatism of the second generation’s American managerial skills. With Elisabetta’s leadership, in fact, the expansion involved also foreign markets and the opening of the Hotel de Charme in Paris and the deluxe hotel The Michelangelo in New York.
Bad Ischl. "We don't want any money for free. But there have to be interest-free loans for companies that face vultures circling above them due to the current lack of snow," demanded OEHV's President Sepp Schellhorn in the course of last week's OEHV congress in Bad Ischl. For the first time, more than 500 participants visited the important industry conference, at which hoteliers also demanded that Austria be more strongly advertised across Europe.
Kaarst. 55 hotels worldwide have already joined the Travel in Trend Hotels consortium founded in summer 2006. In all likelihood, the most important reason being: the appealing image, comparably low costs and persuasive sales team.
Augsburg. The extraordinary general meeting of the still existing Dorint AG is scheduled to take place on February 28 in Neuss near Cologne. On this occasion, all shareholders are to approve the decisions of the main shareholders of last week. As reported in the "Breaking News" last Sunday, the management association of the 93 Dorint/Accor hotels will be cancelled and the co-branding will be terminated. In the meantime, further details became known, just as the names of the 41 hotels being transferred into the new Dorint Ltd.
The brands separate again...
Cologne/Munich. Insolvency proceedings threatening Dorint plc have now been avoided. By way of a so called "spin-off" solution, the German chain has secured itself a new perspective: 41 hotels cooperating with the French Accor Group will now make up a newly founded Dorint Ltd. which will be completely taken over by Ebertz & Partners, Cologne on Monday. 52 hotels remain for the moment with the old hotel company, Dorint plc., is soon to rename itself and instate Accor as majority shareholder. The decision entails the termination of the management contracts with Accor for 41 hotels.
The co-branding introduced in 2003 has also been consigned to the past: Dorint once again becomes Dorint. Accor brands too: Sofitel, Novotel and Mercure are once again to stand alone. Exceptions are made up by the three InterContinental Hotels and a Radisson SAS managed hotel similarly belonging to the Dorint co-operation.
As of April 2007, the newly formed limited company is to receive a new managing director duo: Eric Lassiaille, formerly General Manager of Dorint Resorts, and Elke Schade, present Executive Chairwoman of Ringhotels in Munich. With the before standing changes, Dorint, Germany`s biggest hotel company, is to be reduced to less than half its former size. Insiders now hope the with the newly formed group, which incidentally will still employ a staff 3,000 strong, will once again place Dorint on the path to becoming a profit-making undertaking. First profits are expected for 2009.
The spin off solution was made possible in recent weeks after all funds and owners/leaseholders of Dorint Hotels agreed to further massive reductions in their leases. Once again Accor steps into the breach, this time with an equity contribution of 52 million Euros to be held as capital reserve by the new company. The new Dorint Ltd. will then operate 41 hotels from the former Dorint Accor co-operation.
St. Moritz. The good news spread like wildfire over the holidays: Hansjuerg Badrutt gave his Palace in St. Moritz, one of the most famous luxury hotels of Switzerland, to his Managing Director Hans Wiedemann "as a gift". This surprise coup was a well-considered and cleverly calculated regulation governing the succession of the childless 76-year old heir to the Badrutt hotel dynasty in St. Moritz.