News & Stories

Cologne. The German newspaper "WAZ" reported the last Saturday, that Dirk Iserlohe, Managing Director E&P Holding GmbH & Co. KG before, in a penal procedure around the sales of the former "Senvital" seniors residence a witness should have bribed. Iserlohe defended itself in a statement yesterday massively against it. Yesterday at the same time the insolvency governor informed the press about the fact that the Parkhotel Bremen is led now in future as a 5-star Dorint. Dorint is the hotel-operator's companies from E&P.

Boston/London. IHS GmbH, a facilitator of technology and marketing solutions specialized in the international hotel industry headquartered in Frankfurt, was sold. IHS is backed by Trust International, Worldhotels, Nexus World Services, and IFH Institut.

Munich. For the first time, Oetker Collection introduced itself to the German media. And in addition, CEO Frank Marrenbach came up with a sweet surprise for Munich’s journalists at the Tantris restaurant on Tuesday: from now on, the young operating company will manage the renowned Frégate Island Private ecologic luxury resort on the Seychelles.

Berlin. The doner kebab was the beginning of the success of the Ayg Group in Berlin, the saga says. Then followed the Hasir Restaurants and these are now hotels. The group grows and grows and is quietly and softly conquering, but is entirely targeting the hotel and gastronomic market of Berlin. Capital observers know the large "Titanic Hotel" building site in the section between of the Kempinski Adlon and the Rocco Forte Hotel de Rome. It should open as a 5 Star Grand Hotel in 2014 and become the flagship of the group in Berlin. Altogether today, the group owns and operates nine hotels and multiple restaurants in Germany and in Turkey.

New York. Guest and customer behaviour is currently changing so rapidly that future and marketing research institutes can hardly keep up with noting down the characteristics of the newly forming target groups on paper. A new study once again calls for the hotel industry to become quicker.

Bad Doberan. The new owners of the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm were originally to have been introduced to its staff members on the 1st of July; however, the agreed instalment of the purchase price of allegedly 30 million Euro was not transferred.

Vienna. While Austria's large festivals can prove their economic importance with the millions from the value-added chain, pop festivals and a series of rural events often fill the beds, without anyone paying them a thank you or the millions in revenue being made public. Also this summer, nearly all of Austria is covered by cultural events of varying magnitude.

Berlin. The end of the alliance of Gold Inn AG and Dormero Hotels: their ways will separate on July 31, 2013. Insiders report "a big bang behind the scenes" between the well-known Woehrl entrepreneurial family and its partner Aleksej Leunov. At first, this was not to be made public but then a unilateral company announcement was made last Monday.

Vienna/Munich. "We generate gigantic volumes of data every microsecond: in house, in the network, in store. Raw material or waste? A journey to the mines and refineries of the data era." The teaser on the cover of "GDI Impuls" describes what Big Data is. The Swiss Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute dedicated its first magazine of the year to this topic. Because "Big Data" will change our lives and ideas in future. The Munich-based CRM, software and data specialist Michael Toedt breaks the issue down for the hospitality sector - and challenges management to raise the profile of the marketing manager and to link data in a sensible way. He also sings the praises of the good old questionnaire.

Munich. After ibis and Pullman, now it's Mercure's turn to rebrand: Accor is now cleaning up its midscale hotels. The move may improve the profile of this pool of non-standardised hotels. However, Volkmar Pfaff, Senior Vice President Mercure Central Europe, estimates that ten percent of the current franchise partners will not or cannot move forward with this new concept. As well as the redesign of lobby and services, the core message is: Mercure is moving away from the functional value-for-money midscale concept and has been caught up in the "emotion wave". In order to gain enough experience with the new concept, Accor is also prepared to grow with hotels it itself operates. Otherwise, franchise will continue to set the pace.