News & Stories

Washington DC. "Trump first"? This doesn't seem to be the case – at least when it comes to the hotel activities of the Trump Organization. This name unites 500 Trump businesses, which are headed by his sons. Donald Trump, acting President of the United States, also likes to use his own hotels, especially the ones with golf courses. Despite all show concerning hotels, the following is the case: The number of Trump hotels is decreasing systematically as the owners remove the name and no longer extend agreements. They want to avert damage from their properties, or they complain about poor hotel performance. Only the business in the Trump Hotel Washington is thriving. The Trump Organization has put its hotel expansion on hold at the moment. Macy Marvel provides details with spicy background information.

St. Christoph/Arlberg. Together with two German entrepreneurs and inspired by his own Arlberg Hospiz Hotel, the renowned Austrian luxury hotelier Florian Werner recently founded A3 Tourism Pearls AG in Vienna to rescue family-run hotels with no internal succession arrangement in place. The business model: Private hoteliers without successors exchange shares in their hotel for shares in Tourism Pearls. The project is still very much in the starting blocks. Florian Werner himself is the 31st Hospiz hotelier and knows where the challenges of the next generation lay.

San Francisco. Airbnb acquires HotelTonight, the last-minute deal hotel booking app for over 400 million dollars. The home-sharing platform is preparing for an IPO and this acquisition will help boost its presence in the boutique hotel segment.

Geneva. Kempinski AG, Munich, and Kempinski Hotels SA, Geneva, have announced last Wednesday that Markus Semer will not extend his mandate as Chief Executive Officer. At the same time, Colin Lubbe resigns as Chief Financial Officer and Vice Chairman at Kempinski AG. Currently, there are no successors for either one of them. This is surprising as well as incomprehensible news.

Berlin. Big show this week in Berlin during the International Hotel and Investment Forum: Accor celebrates itself as disruptor – with "Augmented Hospitality”. The message: Everything's about the customer/guest. The core: a new mega mobile app covering all brands. The novelty: As the first hotel group to do so in the world, Accor will allow everybody to become a member of its loyalty programme ALL – that is, even people who have never stayed at an Accor hotel and who may never do so. Guests as well as non-guests can all collect points and exchange them, even in external restaurants or at sporting events. In addition to this, Accor also surprisingly presented two further hotel brands. The Tribe and The House of Originals as brand no. 39 and no. 40. In three years, Accor will presumably count 50 brands.

Berlin. Since the start in 2000, the German hostel chain a&o has grown to 35 properties with 26,000 beds. Founder and CEO Oliver Winter is still the driving force at the top. However, in 2017, he took in an investment company from the US as financial partner. TPG Real Estate seems to like this group and is opening doors for the expansion in Europe. This year, a&o is realising the largest investment programme in its history with 35 million euros. In the background, modified concepts as well as digitalisation are on their way. At IHIF and ITB Berlin, the most current details were revealed this week.

Paris. The new credo is "Accor Live Limitless". The hotel group, which has been converting into a travel and lifestyle company for three years, are adding an emotional component to the functional one now – the experience factor, which should tie the customers more closely to Accor. During the presentation of the flash numbers yesterday in Paris, CEO Sébastien Bazin announced the next steps. These include a new Accor logo, where the umbrella name "AccorHotels" has been reduced to "Accor", and the modified loyalty programme, which will change its functional name "Le Club Accor" to "ALL": "Accor Live Limitless". In addition, marketing will power seven global brands with a mega million budget. Bazin wants Accor to catch up visibly to the mega chains.

Brussels. In January, the Dane Jens Zimmer Christensen took over the chair of the European umbrella organization HOTREC in Brussels. In a first interview with hospitalityInside.com, he is very pleased about what has been achieved in the industry. He regards the industry as well positioned and absolutely fit for the future. The new president wants to continue to address jobs, environment and low VAT. So, is there nothing new in Brussels?

Phoenix/Eschborn. Best Western Hotels & Resorts took over the global soft brand Worldhotels and thus acquired an upscale/luxury brand. Worldhotels will profit from the chain-like structures. Both sides see a great benefit in the deal. So far, nothing has changed much, but synergies are apparent. Best Western and Worldhotels' CEO Geoff Andrew talked to hospitalityInside.com.

Eschborn/Frankfurt. One more brand joined Best Western Hotels this week: Worldhotels – a surprising step. Now, the group has a total of 14 brands. 17 years ago, there was only one brand – Best Western. Most of the brands joined in the last five years, and many of them are not present in continental Europe yet. But the region is in flux and there is a very strong demand for so-called soft brands. Certain brands only appeared because investors/developers wanted to have them. In an interview conducted by Susanne Stauss, Marcus Smola, CEO Best Western Hotels Central Europe, explained the change in his region and the development of the group.