News & Stories
Palma de Mallorca. The newly opened Castillo Hotel Son Vida on the Spanish island of Mallorca is in future to be marketed primarily through The Leading Hotels of the World and not through the reservation system of the company's joint venture partner Starwood. What at first sight may seem of little significance, is part of the new brand and luxury strategy within the ArabellaSheraton hotel group. The hotels are to be repositioned - and not only in Mallorca. The Schoerghuber subsidiary has also signalled further expansion plans. To mark his first "100 days" with the company, Carsten Rath, Management Chairman of Arabella Hotel Holding International and of the Advisory Board of ArabellaSheraton Hotel Management Ltd. explained the first steps of his new strategy under the motto "People, Passion, Performance".
New York. Headlines and confusing lines published by the street press were once again a crowning success for bad journalism: "Hilton and Ritz Carlton now belong to the finance investor Blackstone" titled the German daily "Die Welt" last Wednesday following a news by Bloomberg. The true course of events behind the misleading headline: Blackstone buys the American hotel company Meristar Hospitality which owns real estate of the known hotel groups.
London. The Small Luxury Hotels of the World consortia ended 2005 with an increase of 10% in reservations on the previous year. The largest increases were recorded in online reservations.
Wiesbaden. "Patient hotels" are a well established feature on the Scandinavian landscape. In Germany too, similar designs and ideas are about to be realised. A potential partner among the big brands is Maritim Hotels.
Bonn. For the first time the German Tourism Association has identified the most innovative ideas in German tourism and has summarised them in their own innovation report. Amongst them are three examples from the hotel industry.
New York. With over 430 hotels in 73 countries, The Leading Hotels of the World have achieved the largest member base since the foundation of the hotel alliance. The beginning of 2006 saw 19 new hotels join their portfolio.
Toronto/Singapore. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc. has entered into an acquisition agreement whereby a Canadian company owned by Kingdom Hotels International and Colony Capital will acquire all of Fairmont's outstanding common shares at a price of USD 45.00 per share in cash. The total value of this transaction, including debt and the combination with Asian Raffles Hotels, is expected to be approximately USD 5.5 billion. While Fairmont published a release on this, there was no comment by Raffles.