News & Stories

Augsburg. Eight years ago, Maria Puetz Willems interviewed Simon Sherwood, the fairly young President of the Orient Express Hotels at that time. The most important statements of the interview are shown in the following.

Munich. Spain's second largest hotel chain, NH Hotels based in Madrid, have after two years' intense negotiation taken over the Aston Hotel Group in Munich. The Spanish hotel group thus extends its portfolio of 237 hotels in 18 countries by 46 German hotels and a further seven hotels with a total of 937 rooms in Austria and Switzerland. NH have also assumed ten Astron projects; as concerning the twelve projects still in the pipeline, negotiations continue.

Berlin/Singapore. Jennie Chua, President and Chief Operating Office of Raffles International Limited discusses the integration of the Swissôtel group and the further expansion of Raffles International with Maria Puetz-Willems at the ITB 2002.

Frankfurt/M. In Frankfurt, Sir Rocco Forte and his team presented the plans for the first German Rocco Forte Hotel. By early 2006 in and round about "Villa Speyer", which was built by the banking family Speyer for private use in 1904, the Rocco Forte Hotel "Villa Kennedy" will be built at a cost of 70 million euros.

Mumbai. This year the Taj Mahal Mumbai celebrates its 100 year anniversary with all the expected excess of India's oldest hotel group. Behind the scenes, however, India's famous hotel is working on its profile for the new millennium. Although the grand hotel with charm and tradition is still a favourite choice among guests, the sober expansion plans of Taj Hotels & Resorts are to concentrate on more simple considerations of budget: In the next five years the group wishes to open up to 500 hotels in India tailored to the more price conscious traveller.