News & Stories

Vienna. Strange things have occurred in Vienna since Monday: With an emotional PR paper, Russian Elena Baturina informed the public that she was separating from her manager, Martinez Holding AG. Baturina owns four hotels, including the Grand Tirolia in Austria. As a result, Martinez's Managing Director Michael Regner applied for the insolvency of the Austrian Martinez Hotel GmbH this past Thursday: This also belongs to Baturina.

Munich. Bitter pill for Kempinski: The luxury hotel chain will have to give up the Kempinski Hotel Airport Munich at the end of the year - after 20 years. A successor has already been lined up. There's also obviously been a decision about the new hotel operator in Munich Leopoldstrasse.

London. Preferred Hotel Group announced its year-end results. The number of members and results increased, accompanied by a clear increase of services for the hotels.

Lausanne. As the Peer-to-Peer platforms are increasingly feeling the backlash, providers are beginning to react. HouseTrip, a company offering high-quality private and holiday apartments mostly at the same price as a hotel room, has now conducted a survey among 1,000 Germans to show the importance of reasonably priced holiday deals.

Interlaken. If the Advisory Board is to be believed, the Victoria-Jungfrau Collection is about to be sold to Aevis Holding SA after the latter recently increased its offer. Rival Swiss Private Hotel AG was thrown out of the race with this bid.

Berlin. The Accor brand ibis has freed itself from its last flaw and the old plastic wet room is finally a thing of the past. The contemporary tiled bathroom, the new room and snazzy lobby now put Europe's biggest hotel chain's economy brand back in the running - not only in comparison to the German low budget chain Motel One, but also worldwide. This product and its value-for-money are also intended to appeal to the burgeoning middle classes in Asia and South America: "ibis is the locomotive for Accor", new Accor CEO Sébastien Bazin stressed last Monday in the new ibis Kurfuerstendamm in Berlin, "and we will build on the innovation there."

Berlin. Already at the press conference, Sébastien Bazin willingly and with a wink, stretched out his legs with the red socks for the photographers, featuring the ibis corporate design. At the ibis party in the evening on the occasion of the 1,000th ibis hotel in the world, he even lolled in the "sweet bed" by ibis... This Monday in Berlin, Accor's new CEO displayed considerable humour at his first public appearance outside France – and gave highly analytical and precise answers in his exclusive interview with hospitalityInside.com. He forthrightly admitted several mistakes he had made as a shareholder, and explained Accor's current change in strategy in more detail, as many experts and employees of Accor do not quite understand that it was just this person – the new CEO – who contributed to the listed company's troubles in the past years as representative of Colony, a major shareholder of Accor's. This is why the interview started with a simple question: Why did you, Mr. Bazin, hire the company's most recent CEOs and fire them again?

Berlin. The Berlin state government is now quickly moving along the ban on the misuse of living space. The second of three legal hurdles have been taken on. With this, the walls continue to close in on private room mediators.

London. Small Luxury Hotels of the World was able to register a new business record for the year 2013: there was an 8-percent increase in room occupancy and a 12-percent increase in revenue compared to 2012.

Berlin. Secret Escapes from London has taken over the Berlin last minute app supplier, JustBook. Both companies announced this on Wednesday. The goal is to offer more mobile and cheaper luxury travel.