News & Stories
Augsburg. PR skills are generally way down on the list of priorities for hotel management. Seminar costs are being cut even here - and anyway: "Anyone can do that!" Four books, in English and German, written by 3 journalists and a PR professor, show just how wrong this belief can be. Literature for managers. Easy to read, less easy to implement.
Munich. The German "Focus" news magazine presents a new ranking. The next issue available on Monday includes a list of 550 hotels from all over the world, separated into the categories of "Luxury", "Trend" and "Price/Performance".
Frankfurt/M . In the past few weeks, Moevenpick Hotels & Resorts have opened up two hotels in European key destinations in Frankfurt City and Amsterdam. Overall, the group's expansion focus definitely is the Middle East. On the fringe of the opening in Frankfurt, President Jean-Gabriel Pérès commented on the company strategy. A surprise: in Europe, Moevenpick is contemplating the resort hotel business.
Mumbai. The Leela Palaces & Resorts and Kempinski Hotels officially extended their partnership in India. For the financial year 2005/2006, Hotel Leelaventure Limited registered a net profit growth of 119 percent. Experienced new executives from other Indian companies also joined the Leela group.
Augsburg. Three years ago it was still ridiculed as being way out. Today it’s an important marketing partner for hotels: Anyone who looked for holiday offers on ebay this week would have had 16,311 listings presented at the click of a mouse. The standard travel offer of two nights with breakfast at a fixed date will as of September see new competition: ebay is pushing last minute offers and experts are already working on a direct booking system for concrete dates. Even amongst ebay`s hotel service providers new profiles are beginning to take form. And they all have one goal: to move away from the discounter image once adhering to the virtual auction house. After all, many hotels making online offers through ebay sell at rack rate level.
Bad Arolsen. Hospitality Alliance plc, 63 hotels in size and exclusive franchisee for the Ramada brand in Germany and Switzerland, aims for a clearer image. The former mix consisting of Treff and Ramada Hotels will no longer exist. In this respect, the sale of the Ramada brand from Marriott to Wyndham Worldwide in 2004 plays an important role. Chairman Alexander Fitz is currently announcing new openings in Austria and Switzerland as well as marketing diversifications. In addition, Hospitality Alliance needs to distinguish itself from Corinthia Hotels, with which Wyndham announced a joint expansion in Europe only two weeks ago.
Bad Arolsen. Hospitality Alliance plc has been consolidated. For eight years, the franchisor for the Ramada brand in Germany and Switzerland has made good figures. For the first six months of 2006 too, a 10.6% plus in profit has been recorded. Wyndham's biggest franchisor worldwide has cleaned its portfolio of non-profitable entities and is now expanding, even into Germany's border countries. Hospitality Alliance in facts and figures.
London. Last Friday, Travelodge, the UK's fastest growing hotel company was acquired by Dubai International Capital, a private equity firm within Dubai Holding, for a consideration of 675 million GBP from the Permira Funds. The acquisition is unconditional and is expected to complete by late September. For DIC it's the second acquisition in the hotel industry.
Bad Ragaz. In the Grand Hotels Bad Ragaz, one of the flagships for the Swiss hotel industry, renovation and extension works to a value of over 100 Swiss Francs are about to begin. Consistently positive business figures allow extension both to hotel and management. On 1 August, Peter Tschirky assumed his new position in Bad Ragaz.