News & Stories

Munich. The Preferred Hotel Group now wishes to replicate the success of the "Preferred Boutique" brand with a new design brand in the lower 4-star category. The new brand is intended to appeal primarily to smaller hotels. John Ueberroth, President of the American marketing association, explained the background on a visit to Munich. Preferred is also showing strain under the current economic crisis: The "return guarantee" still promised to members in a campaign last year has been dropped. "There are just too many incalculable risks," Ueberroth says.

McLean. Hilton Hotels Corp. has changed its name to Hilton Worldwide to reflect the company's rich heritage and current status as a global hotel company.

Cologne. The lobby and restaurants of the most recent Althoff Hotel south of Munich have not been renovated yet, but 2010 is to bring the turn of the tide for the Ueberfahrt in Rottach-Egern at Lake Tegernsee south of Munich. In general, however, Thomas Althoff, founder and head of the Althoff Hotel Collection in Cologne, can not complain about 2009 – despite the crisis in the luxury hotel and gourmet sector. After all, his seven luxury hotels have a total of 11 Michelin stars. As far as Althoff's 4-star category is concerned, the 300-room conference hotel in Bonn will become the biggest challenge in 2010. hospitalityInside.com met the rather shy hotelier to take stock of the present situation.

Defereggental. Anyone wishing to open a chic 4-star hotel with 48 rooms in Austria needs a USP. With this in mind, Tatiana Maksimova, originally from Yekaterinburg in Siberia and sole owner of the new hotel in a small East Tyrolean village, introduced Eastern European elements to the design. Since then, the hotel is simply "the Russian hotel". Even the village mayor learnt Russian - yet the hotel refuses to market itself as hotel in Russian style. A provincial tale.

Munich. Men – the primary decision makers in the tourism industry – have for years spent their energy on ensuring that both the quality and price of travel offers be brought down. For this reason, maybe, only 48 percent of people book a package holiday. That means: 52 percent "turn away" from package holidays and put together their own trips. The reason: 80 percent of travel decisions are today – probably – made by women. Yet the male-dominated world of management in tourism ignores women's sensibilities. Ron Imelauer, renowned graphic designer and marketer in Germany's tourism industry can only shake his head. In a talk round held by the Travel Industry Club in Munich recently, he explained "SheQ", the female emotional intelligence which determines purchasing behaviour. A management consultant and behaviour researcher from Mannheim reinforced his assertions with figures from recent research. A trend report on emotions with facts.

Munich. Who belongs to whom? Even insiders have a hard time allocating hotel brands to their brand owners nowadays. hospitalityInside.com has supported PKF hotelexperts Munich in developing a database that is able to give answers to such questions - and many more. As a first extraction from the new database, the English "brand report" will be presented at the Expo Real Munich. The real estate fair starts next Monday.

Munich. The term "budget hotel" is often used and rarely defined. The range spans from low-budget bunk beds and rooms for eight persons to middle-class products, and all of them hope to achieve higher occupancy by using "budget" as a marketing label. The Munich-based consultancy PKF hotelexperts prepared its first report about "budget hotels in Germany" in collaboration with hospitalityInside.com. The extensive report provides numerous summarising statistics and figures from budget providers and can be obtained as of now.

Paris. The Paris based marketing consortium Relais & Châteaux underlines its further internationalisation by establishing new delegations in Australia, New Zealand and Latin America as well as new subsidiaries in France, South Africa and Asia.

Berlin. The love for animals opens up a new potential target group for hotels. hospitalityInside.com has already provided several reports on this issue. Near Berlin, a hotelier has adjusted his hotel's infrastructure fully to the "guests with paws" - humans are of secondary importance. The concept, ambience and location all ensure that animal lovers preferably choose this hotel as a conference location or even spend their holidays here. The animal guests can expect an entertainment and spa programme appropriate for their kind.At the Pfoetchenhotel Beelitz-Schoenefeld south of Berlin, you enjoy being a dog. Crossbreed Benni marches adventurously across the yard of the Pfoetchenhotel his tail upright and curiously sniffing with his nose. He probably does not mind the fact that the red brick buildings from 1929 he passes by are listed. Things like that are the business of humans. He sets much greater store by the huge meadows for romping, the dog beach and the dog school waiting for him.

Frankfurt. What will happen to Steigenberger Hotels & Resorts? As reported last week, the hotel chain was sold relatively surprisingly to Travco Group from Egypt. There is hardly any news from Steigenberger's headquarter in Frankfurt. General Managers of Steigenberger also appear totally intimidated. In the meantime, there is some more information about Hamed El Chiaty, Steigenberger's new shareholder.