News & Stories

Paris. If for European households, a weak euro means less buying power, for Americans, Chinese or British travelers – to name a few –, it means cheaper holidays to Europe and lots of shopping. One question remains: which destination to pick?

Eschborn. Once again, Best Western's German division Best Western Hotels Deutschland GmbH has increased its number of hotels to more than 200 properties and reports a clear plus in turnover. The group has started a global design programme for all hotels and remains very secretive about its new Vib brand.

London. P2P platforms may have a new competitor in the upper segment offering more services than they do: The new Preferred Residences will sell membership-free holiday experiences that combine the space and privacy of a home with the luxury and comfort of a renowned hotel.

Wiesbaden. Everybody is longing for lifestyle. It sounds like a fun, comfortable, and fashionable life – and the hotel is the perfect stage for it. Moreover, the term is wonderfully vague and can be adapted to any lifestyle mood in any country. This is probably the reason why the chains are now flooding the market with new labels in increasingly shorter intervals. In reality, they do not provide much individualism but empty, interchangeable catchwords instead. Our comparison shows: The creativity of the inventors of lifestyle brands can be reduced in brief to "copy & paste". And everything started so honestly once.

Bellevue, Wash./Southlake, Texas. Expedia has acquired Travelocity from Sabre Corporation for $280 million in cash. As such, Sabre is finally withdrawing from the OTA business.

London. The British low budget lifestyle brand, Yotel, announced a global expansion in December: There should additionally be more than 3,000 "cabins" by 2018. However, the new planned city centre properties in Singapore, Paris, Miami and San Francisco and in a second hotel in New York City will be transformed from the windowless sleeping boxes that are at the airport hotels into pleasant comfort rooms. Hubert Viriot, Chief Executive Officer of the hotel group since May, 2014, explained how the change of mind and strategy had come about in a conversation with hospitalityInside.com. Viriot will also be a guest on the CEO Panel on March 5 at this year's "ITB Hospitality Day", the hotel conference of ITB Berlin.

London. Many companies focus on the 3Cs of organisational wealth: Financial Capital, Intellectual Capital and Human Capital. Today, corporations must add a fourth 'C': Trust Capital. A new trend report reveals it.

Frankfurt. The most stable hotel groups emerge if the individual members are perfectly matched to one another. This is particularly true of consortiums. Worldhotels wants to convey just this to both their current and potential future members. Since yesterday, the association with its 500 members across 65 countries is meeting in Guangzhou, China, not far away from Hong Kong, and the new Managing Director Kristin Intress is paving the way for a new course: the consortium is making a sales promise. If a member hotel is not satisfied, it is allowed to exit.

Hong Kong/Augsburg. The Asian Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts has gained a foothold in Paris and London, but Europe indeed remains to be interesting to them - even when the Chinese luxury hotel group will maintain their expansion focus within the booming market of China. In 1971, the Malaysian Kuok family laid the foundations of their hotel empire in Singapore. Also in the future, every hotel should keep its individual character that is always moulded by the local atmosphere, first-class F&B, sophisticated art and top-notch service. These pillars are important to President & Chief Executive Officer, Greg Dogan. But the expansion is also important: "By the beginning of 2016, we would like to have more than 100 hotels in the large, key cities of the world," he reveals during an interview with hospitalityInside.com. Toward this, he is prepared to discuss every contract form and every equity engagement.

Madrid. Adults-Only concepts and female travellers stand for specialized segments with a growing demand in tourism – at least in Spain. On the Canary Islands, Adults-Only hotels have increased from one hotel to 30 today; in the Balearic region, there are currently more than 70 Adults-Only hotels. In addition, Adults-Only hotels can be found in more star categories meanwhile. "Spain is a world power in tourism. But we have to go for continuous innovation", says Fabián González Checa, a specialist in hotel innovation and partner of the business development agency Digitalmeteo in Madrid. Is specialization the lifeguard of a mature country? "It is the only way to survive", says González Checa convincingly.