News & Stories

Amsterdam. Fee-based portals for the mediation of private accommodation such as Airbnb and Wimdu are still not very popular in Germany. More still: The accommodation concepts as an alternative to hotels and pensions are finding an increasing number of opponents in this country.

Hamburg/Frankfurt. The German Novum Hotels Holding with 49 hotels has retrospectively taken over the Winters Hotel Company with six hotels with retrospective effect to the beginning of 2015. Novum announced this yesterday. It will not be the last takeover for Novum.

Berlin. GCH Hotel Group recently analysed evaluation portals, metasearch engines, and OTA portals in great detail in order to learn from them: the hotels under the GCH roof are to be marketed more intensely than ever in the future via a brand-focused presentation on its own website. "The fees need to generate return," says Bart Beerkens, Vice President Commercial describing the expectations of GCH Hotel Group's, one of the biggest groups in Central Europe with 112 hotels – mostly running under franchise brands of international chains. Moreover, GCH aims at honing their profile as a service provider in the field of B2B.

Shanghai. A mega-mega merger is at hand in China: The two giants there, Jin Jiang and Plateno Hotels, should merge. Moreover, Jin Jiang still wants to convert its global operator, Interstate, into cash. Is all of this in preparation for the purchase of Starwood Hotels? The background circumstances.

Cologne. The strategy remains: radically streamline and solve problems! "I use my red pen everywhere," Dirk Iserlohe says. The CEO of the Dorint parent E&P Holding GmbH & Co KG presented hospitalityInside.com with a preview of the Profit & Loss account for 2014. According to this account, Neue Dorint GmbH will improve its operating result by EUR 3.5 million and in the end could even come close to a "black zero" or even move further into the profit zone. There remain questions with regard to refinancing though, on lease deferrals and pending tax disputes. 2015 is then finally expected to mark the breakthrough, Iserlohe explained and repeated, as he did in the last interview 17 months ago: "Dorint is no longer burning money!"

Palma de Mallorca. Four weeks after the attack of IS terrorists on the Tunisian RIU Hotel Imperial Marhaba, the Spanish hotel chain has registered a decrease in bookings in all its Tunisian hotels, but not in other countries. The hotel chain continues to follow its expansions plans.

Paris/London. The sale of B&B Hotels has been under discussion since March, 2015, as has now been publicised in a French newspaper. And alongside this in England, the Travelodge budget chain is up for sale – or it will enter the stock exchange.

Rome. A new hospitality player has just entered the Italian market. And it has been done with a business concept that is reminiscent of traditional models: the player is more of an asset management company than hospitality operator. Millennium & Copthorne Hotels has recently acquired the 5-star luxury Grand Hotel Palace in Rome from Boscolo Hotels: the transaction was carried out as part of the debt restructuring process of the Paduan company, previous owner and operator of the Roman asset. M&C intends to extend its Italian footprint very soon. "We aim at developing other primary locations such as Venice and Milan, where we are in advanced negotiations about some interesting assets at present,” reveals Fabrizio Gaggio, Italy CEO and Vice President Global Asset Management of M&C.

Munich. On average, brand hotels in Germany achieve 15 percent higher room prices than the individual hotels even though they still dominate the market. But, this could soon change. The last bastion of superiority for the individual hotels in terms of price, the 3 Star segment, is swaying.

Amsterdam/Brussels. Amsterdam has one of the highest supply pipelines in the hospitality industry within Europe. Hundreds of rooms are added to the inventory every year. In the luxury segment, competition is definitely on. Fancy boutique hotel concepts are pushing the 4-star segment. Among all these, established chains have to keep pace with this dynamic development. Right now, the Spanish NH Hotel Group is investing over 227 million euros in order to keep running upfront across the core markets. Maarten Markus, NH Hotel Group's Managing Director for Benelux, France, UK, USA, and Africa explains the strategy in his area and talks about the fierce competition in Amsterdam where several NH hotels are partially closed for renovation at the moment. NH Collection is the up-and-coming brand. Also in Central Europe, NH is repositioning itself in the background: Managing Director Christian Koerfgen about similar measures and differences.