News & Stories

Hamburg. The 25hours Hotel Company approaches its 10th anniversary with a new corporate design. The design will reflect the group's cosmopolitan spirit.

Vienna. The sail boat threatens to tip down from the roof, wine is growing at the front door and inside, there is a multitude of green sprouting from all sorts of peculiar vessels… Today, the lifestyle traveller does not spend nights in Vienna at the Sacher or Imperial, they reside at the Daniel. Hotelier Florian Weitzer calls his concepts "Smart Luxury". The native of Graz trusts in the hot Viennese hotel patch because these concepts have brought him full beds in the Styrian capitol since 2005. The Daniel in Graz and The Daniel in Vienna connect the will to substitute for cumbersome hospitality with unconventional living and life.

With its relaxed "urban stay" concepts, the family-controlled hotels in Graz as well as in Vienna completely meet the trend of the market. It is another coloured stone in the newly originating, colourful boutique hotel palette such as with the Topazz, the Altstadt Vienna or 25hours; and in the meantime, they are all taking away from the chain hotels' guests.

Augsburg. The recent announcement by Inter Ikea that it intends to move into the market for student housing and budget hotels resulted in a flood of press reports. One week later, the question mark above Inter Ikea is even larger, if anything.

Frankfurt/M. HGM, operator of Fleming's Hotels and Restaurants in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and Livin' boarding houses as well as franchisee of several Steigenberger Hotels, announces positive figures for the first half of 2012. Additionally, a former Steigenberger hotel was launched under its own brand and affiliated as a pilot project to the brand model of Worldhotels.

Paris. Hilton lost the right to manage the Hilton Arc de Triomphe in Paris City centre. The group has now few weeks to take down its brand.

Brussels. All trend researchers are talking of the digital revolution: of youngsters bringing dramatic change to the world; of masses booking via mobile devices; of the absolute interconnection between online and offline activities. Those who listen to trend researchers several times a year and are led to believe in the speed of trends could become depressive. How is it possible to distinguish between trends and hypes? We wanted to know this from a hotel group, which transfers global and social trends to its own brand or creates new trends based on this knowledge - as consequently as only very few other hotel groups do. "W" is Starwoods’ strongest example for this. Oliver Bonke, Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing EMEA, explains in an interview with Maria Puetz-Willems how Starwood Hotels keeps the overview and fluently moves with its customers/guests between the online and offline world.

Vienna/Augsburg. After the Billy shelf, will Ikea now provide the world with Billy hotels? The famed Swedish budget furniture chain now intends to build low cost housing and budget hotels in selected cities. And it doesn't stop there. The Swedes have even more ambitious plans for Europe: They want to move into city planning. Private investors are certainly likely to have their ideas heard by struggling municipal planners. Insofar, it doesn't surprise that Ikea's plans for student apartments sound more developed than those for the hotel industry. In Vienna, student projects have already been completed with Ikea‘s support.

Munich. The new partnership between TripAdvisor and TrustYou is another example for the increasing number of "evaluation affiliate" models on the market. At the same time, TrustYou enables hoteliers to send guest reviews to HolidayCheck by simply pressing a button.

Brussels. The first half of 2012 saw a drastic increase in revenues significantly reducing losses, but that is not the only reason Kurt Ritter, Chief Executive Officer Rezidor Group, and Wolfgang M. Neumann, Chief Operating Officer, were in a good mood one week after publishing the semi-annual report. They consider the close partnership with main shareholder Carlson and the connected hotel brands a great advantage when it comes to persuading the remaining shareholders of "Route 2015". In the course of this, Rezidor's brand development is being geared to Radisson Blu and Park Inn more than ever before. The latter will receive a new brand profile. Country Inn is being put in the hands of Carlson and the American market. Rezidor officially wants to avoid lease agreements; however, a few are being signed nonetheless as became apparent in the interview with Maria Puetz-Willems. One thing becomes clear: Rezidor is switching over to profitability leaving its pure expansion strategy behind.

Paris. Again in financial distress, Mohammed Al Jaber's hotel group JJW France faces one more time the Commercial Court of Paris.