News & Stories

Berlin. The Spanish hotel group Meliá International plans speedy expansion of three of its eight brands. CEO Gabriel Escarrer sees the brands ME by Meliá, Innside and Sol as top sellers among millennials; in addition, he wants to satisfy their appetite for flexible all-round service through more F&B as well as new food concepts.

Berlin. Marriott reports great figures again, which is why the US chain has started to hold press conferences once again – even with the top management. This was true in Berlin and in Milan, two days later. CEO Arne Sorensen mentioned generally favourable purchasing opportunities regarding hotels and confirmed that he could imagine taking over small chains. Apart from that, Moxy remains Marriott's main driver.

Munich/Zurich. Recent years have shaken Samih Sawiris and his companies. But the Egyptian entrepreneur with headquarters in Switzerland and various projects in crisis-buffeted destinations remains with his long-term strategy. "One crisis would have been enough," he says looking back on the fallout from the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008, "but a second immediately in the aftermath?" Here he refers to the Egypt crisis which also hit the billion euro Orascom Hotel Development business. Meanwhile, he's streamlined certain projects and has brought third parties on board. At the same time, he strengthened distribution last year - with participations in the German tour operator FTI and the RT Group. With FTI, he aims to give a massive boost to hotel business - for the benefit of both sides. A very close partnership is in the making here. hospitalityInside.com met Samih Sawiris in February in Munich.

Frankfurt/M. Since last week, Steigenberger has its own lifestyle brand: Jaz. This way, the German-based group participates in the current wave of the international brand providers. However, the group did not create this brand but "lent" it from Travco Group Egypt for the expansion outside of Egypt via name license agreement. The travel and tourism group Travco is the business of the owner of Steigenberger, Hamed El Chiaty. The news just became public during talks behind the scenes between Steigenberger's CEO Puneet Chhatwal and Maria Puetz-Willems about the group's hotel strategy abroad.

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.