News & Stories
Berlin. The parking garage and hotel combo is nothing new. Though the form proposed by project developer MQ Real Estate in Berlin is quite unique. It focuses on expansion in a very specific way, adding hotels to parking decks. In Europe alone, 1,000 parking garages would be suitable. "We can add additional space to parking garages and car parks with wooden modules combined to form a fully-functional hotel," Managing Director Bjoern-M. Hiss says. Yesterday, a crane lifted the first hotel room module on to the upper storey of a parking garage in the Ring-Center 2 in Berlin-Lichtenberg. Nine projects are currently in the pipeline to be operated under the company's own brand, MyQuarter. And the first hotel groups have already shown an interest.
Rostock. Deutsche Hotel & Resort Holding continue to expand in the city hotel industry with the two successful brands HENRI and arcona LIVING: with new hotels in Berlin, Duesseldorf and Wetzlar.
Madrid. NH Hotels Group is facing a lawsuit from its largest shareholder, Chinese group HNA. The internal battle for power and control is still on. A Madrid court will soon decide if there is indeed a conflict of interest in this case and if HNA's board members can return…or not.
Berlin. Roland Paar and his development team are currently to be found in many destinations and hotels, pushing forward the Chinese Plateno Group, above all in German-speaking Europe. Behind the scenes though, another interesting project is taking shape: "Plateno Connect" – a distribution network for all European hoteliers looking to place offers directly in China. Plateno, currently one of the largest Chinese hotel group with over 3,700 hotels, focuses here on synergies with its existing booking platform as well as on customer loyalty through social media and third party reservation outlets. Roland Paar, Regional Vice President Europe, and Tomasz Janczak, Director of Distribution and eCommerce Europe, explain.
Vienna. At the very latest by this year's "Alpbach Economic Talks", digitalisation has arrived as a key issue in Austrian tourism. The future is to be secured with new support for 'Lighthouse Projects' and the rapid expansion of the 5G network. The EU has debated endlessly with respect to the latter - and as a result has been beaten by Korea. Korea's 5G network will go live in 2019 - with an important side-effect: Europe will be left behind economically.
Bethesda/Beijing. Last month, for the third time now, China's antitrust regulator postponed its decision about the Marriott/Starwood merger deal. Both hotel groups are just waiting for China's clearance to complete the transaction and start saving millions of dollars of costs as they promised they would do. It is legitimate to wonder why China is acting this way. Is this really about fair competition or is it more a nationalist/protectionist reaction to the fact that Marriott/Starwood would become the largest hotel group in the world? Which of these factors could compromise Chinese hotel groups’ own ambitions to grow domestically and internationally? Speculations are numerous right now, we tried to understand the whys and wherefores with international experts.
London/Munich. Next month, Belmond celebrates its 40th birthday. For 38 years, the group bore the name Orient-Express Hotels - and indeed its history with this name is unique. It began in 1976 as James B. Sherwood acquired the Cipriani in Venice and a few years later launched the Venice Simplon Orient Express. Now, President & CEO Roeland Vos wants to put Belmond on a new journey. Within five years, up to the end of 2020, the luxury hotel group is to grow from 44 to 80-97 palaces, residences and boutique hotels, nostalgic luxury trains, river cruises and safari lodges. An ambitious plan. In recent years, Belmond made the headlines by selling its trophy assets. This has now come to an end. And with many other things too.
Munich. Guest feedback becomes more and more important. In order to help hoteliers to collect more review content, TrustYou offers a free pdf with tips on how to set up effective surveys as an e-book.
Rockville. Last month, during his call with analysts concerning Q2 results, Steve Joyce, CEO of Choice Hotels International, was talkative. From positive earnings to direct bookings and lowest rates on their own websites, from brand development to loyalty program, he mentioned it all. And by the way, he is tired of OTAs and is warning Airbnb.
Mainz. Feuring - Visionary Hotel Development, based in Mainz, was established over 50 years ago and is one of the companies active in the hospitality sector that goes about its job discreetly and quietly yet still works on large and renowned projects. Today, the company doesn't highlight its international character quite so much, the possibilities on offer in Europe and Germany alone are too attractive for that. All the same, the hotel developers, asset managers and financial consultants will bring another brand to Germany in 2018 - Hyatt Place. It also continues to accompany established hotels over the long term. And there it is willing to take on risk. Both managing directors, Bardo-M. Feuring and Matthias Lowin explain their current strategy.