News & Stories

Milan. It has just landed in Rome and is now aiming for Milan, Amsterdam and Berlin, where it is expected to open new properties before the end of the year. Implemented only two years ago, Sweet Inn is an innovative French-Israeli brand privately owned by the Luxembourg-based company Sweet Inn Lux. Thanks to an initial 5-million euro investment, it already has a portfolio of 170 residential units located in the Italian capital, as well as in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona and Lisbon. Massimiliano Sarti talked to Boaz Beeri, Director of Business Development Europe, about the Sweet Inn concept. A little bit of a hotel and a little bit of an apartment…

Paris. AccorHotels signed a partnership with an Australian client intelligence platform to precisely analyze guests' likes, customize its own content offers and to start up a direct communication between hoteliers and guests.

Stamford. "SPG Keyless" allows Starwood guests to use their smartphone as a key to their hotel room doors since 2014. The loyalty program "Starwood Preferred Guest" launches the next generation of this keyless technology with an even wider range of brands.

Turin. Allegro means cheerful and light-hearted. The Italian Allegroitalia Hotels & Resorts want to score with this feeling. The hotel group, which was founded by Piergiorgio Mangialardi in 2010, currently has six hotels operating and two projects in the pipeline under the two hotel brands Allegroitalia and Espressohotel and under the overlapping Condotel brand. Also, the group plans its entry in Hamburg as well to establish a small chain in China. But the hotel structure is difficult to understand.

Hamburg. The Ameron Hotel Speicherstadt is located in the former Coffee Exchange of Hamburg and now has another USP: The only hotel in Hamburg located in a landmark of the city of Hamburg is also now officially part of the UNESCO World Heritage.

Madrid. This week, NH Hotels Group's annual general meeting brought its share of surprises. Not only HNA representatives have been dismissed from the board but Federico J. González Tejera was not re-elected as CEO of the company. In the meantime, four new board members joined the party as well three new chief executives who will act as CEOs. That's not it.

Frankfurt/Paris. Just like big hotel chains, two European hotels consortia are joining forces in order to better control their distribution. French consortium Châteaux & Hôtels Collection and German-based Romantik Hotels & Restaurants agreed this week to work together to resist the M&A wave currently reshaping the hospitality sector.

Parsippany, NJ. Wyndham Hotel Group unveiled its vision for the democratization of travel. WHG's roadmap for the strategic transformation of its brands is aimed at elevating the travel experience for millennials and the diverse global middle class.

Paris. In the past 6 months, Chinese giant Jin Jiang, has been slowly but surely munching on AccorHotels' capital. Now it seems to be developing a real appetite – aiming for 29% of the shares. A new challenging chapter in the Chinese-Western story of M&A is emerging.

Beijing/Madrid/Brussels. Chinese conglomerate HNA is getting attention lately. Two years after betting on the Spanish NH Hotels Group, it is taking over the Carlson Wagonlit hotel branch, which boasts 1,400 properties and includes the Rezidor portfolio. Will HNA aim at taking control over both European chains? It might be good.