News & Stories

Rome. The Autograph Collection: the name sounds poetically independent, and nothing is reminiscent of the parent company, Marriott Hotels. This is intentional. The American bed giant with 3,500 hotels is now pressing ahead to promote its 18th brand in Europe as well. The Autograph Collection targets the bastion of independent individual hotels – but they seem to be much less easy to convince than expected by the US managers. After two years, the dynamically expanding chain only has 26 franchisees worldwide. Only nine of them are located in Europe, which has the biggest pool of individual hotels. Last week in Rome, when four Boscolo hotels were included in the chain, Marriott seized the opportunity to introduce the concept officially. The superficial presentation in American-style, however, gives reason to doubt whether Marriott is taking the right approach in continental Europe. The only counterargument: Marriott's distribution power.

Vienna. Austria’s biggest hotel chain is a relatively unknown company: Jufa. The name derived from the "Styrian youth and family guest houses”. With 43 hotels either operating or under construction and further hotels in the planning stage, Jufa clearly surpasses the 33 Austria Trend Hotels belonging to Verkehrsbuero Group. Now Jufa is also expanding to neighbouring Germany. As regards urban hotels, Jufa pursues a different strategy compared to the rural ones. The 515-room hotel in Vienna, which is currently under development, is considered a role model.

Madrid. Mariano Pérez Claver, new president and CEO of NH Hoteles since March, sets a course: The hotel group changes its organizational structure, strengthens the commercial and cost control divisions and replaces the management of Sotogrande. All this measures are part of an efficiency improvement plan.

Frankfurt. 18 new hotels have joined Romantik Hotels & Restaurants in the first nine months to October of this year. Accordingly, the consortium now counts 213 hotels in 12 countries.

Atlanta/Arlington. Interstate Hotels & Resorts, one of the larger independent hotel management companies in the United States, integrates Noble Management Group, the hotel operating business of lodging and hospitality investment organization Noble.

Berlin. About one month after the taking over by Google, DailyDeal is changing its conditions for advertising partners. Main subject: unredeemed vouchers are being paid back by the business.

Las Vegas. From its annual Americas Investors & Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, IHG announced a new global repositioning strategy for Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts.

Neustadt. Insolvency procedures have been opened against both former managing directors of the Deilmann cruise line. The cruise line and her flagship "MS Deutschland" are not affected by it.

Amsterdam. Five years after the premiere with the citizenM Amsterdam-Schiphol, the Dutch "luxury budget” chain is operating a total of three hotels: at Amsterdam airport as well as downtown and in Glasgow. Due to the crisis, the company has focused expansion on London and New York. According to CEO Michael Levie, the company has eleven projects in the pipeline at top locations all over the world. On the website, the group speaks of 20 planned hotels that are to be erected within the next five years – at airports with more than 15 million passengers per year and cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants and the necessary bit of leisure time, lifestyle and/or business. Our correspondent Sarah Douag met Michael Levie in Amsterdam. An update on a promising hotel group we have heard very little about in the last while.

Munich. Asian chains keep a lookout after their own hotels and consortium possibilities in Europe while on the other hand, Europeans prefer being active in Asia as operators or franchisors. Those who would like to be involved in moving the continents together successfully should know the rules of the game. The talk on the subject "Asian Chains: How does business pay off in Europe?" at the 10th "Hospitality Industry Dialogue" during the Expo Real 2011 made it clear where the differences and mutual expectations lie with a few figures.