News & Stories

Berlin/Eindhoven. This holiday home agency provides more than Spartan apartments with Ikea furniture. Euro Relais' portfolio includes light houses, islands, small castles, mountain cottages and sail boats. The Dutch provider has successfully managed to lure its clientele online, with 75% of all reservations now made over the internet.

Augsburg. The forthcoming International Tourism Exchange will be a special event for the team of hospitalityInside.com. We will celebrate our first birthday and celebrate with you! As co-creator and presenter of the first ITB "Hospitality Day", we are looking forward to your visit. Dear readers, we will change our reporting mode slightly during the next week. The details.

Vienna. The countries of south eastern Europe are having to try increasingly hard to shore up tourist business in their regions as a result of the pressure of global tourism giant TUI. New tour operators are springing up, hotels and incoming-agents pool capital. The goal: opposition in the face of the vertically integrated value chain that is TUI. In Austria traditional distribution channels are beginning to change, as the Turkish example shows.

 

Binz/Ruegen. Bird flu has reached Germany. The first region to be affected by the virus is the holiday island of Ruegen. Pictures of dead birds, cordoned off beaches and the disinfection of cars bring drama to the tiny island. The hoteliers, on the other hand, remain calm. There is certainly a sense of crisis but still not one of panic. There have been cancellations but no seasonal disaster. None of the hoteliers are already thinking about crisis plans.

Zurich. In connection with the Swiss holiday club debacle, the tour operator Kuoni has put aside 98 million Swiss Francs. In the worst case scenario the company will have to show losses of 50 million SFR for 2005. The reason lies in Kuoni's last international hotel venture.

Vienna. Austria's national tourist board Österreich Werbung wants to extend their incoming fair "Austrian Travel Business" to offers from Eastern Europe. In this way they hope to increase their revenue from the fair. But now this idea is meeting criticism: Many want Austria to continue to be marketed as an entity.

Augsburg. The demand for luxury and design hotels is increasing just as the demand for suites. That was reported by the tour operator airtours this week. The customer simply seeks the "individual accommodation experience".

Frankfurt/M. On average company hotel expenses make up between 30 and 40 percent of their entire travel budget, but these could be considerably reduced. Up to half of all companies still don't use a structured hotel programme in order to make savings.

Vienna. Twelve new cabin ships ensure that the Danube maintains its global top position in international river traffic. The only drop of bitterness: the joint advertising arrangement for marketing the Danube is facing difficulties.

Berlin. Surveys of global markets show: a year of "normal tourism" no longer exists. The rise in natural disasters and politically motivated attacks is no obstacle to tourism - impacts very brief and locally confined.