News & Stories

Dubai. "Nakheel is fuelling the tourism of Dubai", say full-page newspaper advertisements as well as extensive advertising posters at the entrance of the World Trade Center Dubai, which sees the end of the "Arabian Travel Market" today. But it is not only the major developer Nakheel who is driving tourism forward: Dubai keeps buying worldwide mega brands to become a world brand of its own. This week's highlights: Dubai gets its own "Universal Studios" and the "Cirque du Soleil" takes up residence here. And the Palm Deira, the world's largest artificial island, has revised its master plan to gain even more land mass. Hotels are involved everywhere, of course. Even more hotels. Some hotel groups were able to announce unique projects like the first fractional ownership facility in Arabia.

St. Anton. Against all expectations, the closing winter season in was still one for the record books in Austria. Primarily thanks to city and spa tourism. Nevertheless, next year will be, as always, the most difficult.

Imst. An optimism unfettered by worries of climate change still drives on the Alpine tourism industry in Austria. This is now confirmed by the savings bank Sparkasse Imst. Here, Basel II credit checks rarely form an obstacle for credit applications. The era of investment in expansion, however, now seems to be coming to an end.

Dubai. This week again, hotel groups in the United Arab Emirates announced new brands and further massive expansion plans. Another Arab luxury hotel group has come into being and in the next few days a further flood of announcements are expected. On Saturday morning the "Arabian Hotel Investment Conference" in Dubai is about to begin, directly followed by the "Arabian Travel Market" on Tuesday. Editor in Chief Maria Puetz-Willems, this week in Dubai, reports the latest news from Arabia where Maan Hamzi, hospitalityInside team member in Dubai, managed to entice first details of the Bawadi hotel project, currently the world's biggest hotel project with 31 hotels and 29,200 rooms, from the CEO of the group. More live reports from Dubai will follow in the next issues.

Munich. The German online traveller doesn't change a lot. During the first three months of the year 2007 Spain stays first choice within the category most chosen countries. Turkey pushed Egypt from the second to the third position where it stayed after the survey in December 2006. Top city-destination during the first quarter 2007 is Rome, followed by Paris and London.

Frankfurt/M. All experts are agreed on one thing: The conference and congress branch in Germany has developed into an important economic factor for which growth prognoses remain positive. The tendency towards increased cost awareness and thrift, is, however, still an obstacle. At the MICE trade fair IMEX 2007 in Frankfurt, the findings of several studies on this subject were presented. Although differing in the details, the same trend is evident from them all.

Paris. More and more multinational companies are consolidating their travel programs. This enables them to reduce their total travel costs by 20 percent on average. Consolidating hotel spend results in average savings of 6.5 percent.

Frankfurt/M. The new trade fair year is running at top steam. And for hoteliers, this means detailed planning as to which trade fairs and events - MICE, hotel industry or business travel - they'll be taking part in over the coming months, either as visitor or exhibitor. A study shows: Companies are spending more money on trade fairs. In this article, hospitalityInside.com provides a little help and has summarised the most important trade fairs below.

Frankfurt/Dubai. For the first time, Frankfurt is to be venue for the "Emirates-Germany Business Summit". From 8 to 10 May, government officials and businessmen from Dubai are to meet with interested German entrepreneurs on the trade fair compound in Frankfurt.

Hanover/London. TUI and British First Choice are set to merge. TUI will assume all tourist activities - with the exception of certain hotel investments - to form a new company. The firm with the name TUI Travel plc will be based in Great Britain where it will apply to be listed on the stock market.