News & Stories

Neustadt in Hostein. The German "Das Traumschiff" TV series has become invaluable. Since 1999, the "MS Deutschland" belonging to Peter Deilmann Reederei in Neustadt, Schleswig-Holstein has been cruising across the TV screens making dreams come true for millions of viewers. The cruiser with an Art Nouveau appearance is Germany`s only swimming 5-star hotel, and the only luxury cruiser of the world sailing under German colours proud of Germany as a location - despite strict conditions, quality standards and charges. The shipping company has only ten boats. The river cruising segment has gained momentum over the past few years as well.

Berlin. The ”pipeline” is becoming bigger each year, Seán C. Worker says, Managing Director and Senior Vice President of International Operations for the Wyndham Hotel Group. Franchise development currently includes over 104,000 hotel rooms. The main focus is on the expansion of all tiers: on Ramada Encore in Europe and Asia, Super 8 hotels in Asia and Wyndham hotels in all major markets.

Rome. After four decades as Italy's leading hotel, Rome Cavalieri becomes the first hotel in Europe and the sixth globally to join The Waldorf-Astoria Collection, the luxury brand of the Hilton Hotels Corporation.

Munich/Paris. The Asian magnet now also attracts Relais & Châteaux: for the first time, the consortium is also represented in India and Singapore, event though with local hotels of a small size (photo: the Mahaua Kohti in Badhavgarh, India). This step makes the number of members increase by 34 to 467 individual hotels in 2008. The three annual "trophies" awarded by R&CH all went to German hotels this year. Europe remains in the focus of marketing for the originally French consortium. After establishing itself in London and New York, a "Maison" was opened in Switzerland this year. The next European "experience office" of this kind will be following in Munich.

 

Paris/Berlin. By the end of 2005, Société du Louvre was sold to the Starwood Capital US investor, after which "we carried out stocktaking for one year," says Marie-Béatrice Lallemand, who has been Chief Operating Officer Concorde Hotels & Resorts - the luxury brand of the Société du Louvre parent company - since May 2005. 2007 served as a preparation period for the new development structure the realisation of which will start in 2008. At the turn of the year, Société du Louvre was renamed Group du Louvre, and there was a clear separation of companies with respect to the segments of the new "Lourvre Hotels" and "Concorde Hotels". Today, the group includes 33 Concorde Hotels & Resorts in 13 countries as well as 800 hotels of the Campanile, Kyriad and Première Classe budget brands. The Crillon Hotels & Resorts, Baccarat Hotels & Resorts noble brands as well as the 1 Hotels & Residences environmental brand are currently in the build-up phase.

Berlin. The ITB traffic chaos in Berlin and his chock-a-blog schedule made it difficult to meet each other, but it worked out in the end: David Fattal, founder of Fattal Group in Israel, belongs to the new figures on the market one should have seen in private once. After all, he wants to open about 80 hotels in Europe by 2011. "I`m a hotelier," says Fattal about himself, "and the German(-speaking) market is of great interest to me, as it is economically developed and provides the same business culture as Israel." In contrast to the major international chains, the rising entrepreneur would only prefer to don one thing: buy hotels and operate them himself.

Berlin. In 2007, the Small Luxuy Hotels of the World increased their turnover in terms of total reservations by 23 percent in comparison to the previous year, and exceeded the level of 100 million US dollars for the first time. The average room rate arranged increased by ten percent to 365 US dollars. These figures were announced by the cooperation at the ITB Berlin.