News & Stories

Madrid. The Spanish Constitutional Court rejected the request put forward by the Canary Islands which would have allowed them to limit the construction of new hotels according to their category. The regional hospitality association of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Ashotel, defends its principle of "best beds, no more beds". And it is waiting for new regulations which would balance the environment and new hotel projects.

Rome. Last winter proved to be a two-faced season for Italian mountain destinations: with a difficult start, characterised by an almost complete absence of snow, followed by a good quarter from January to March. But statistics only reflect domestic figures.

Hanover/London. TUI Group continued its positive performance in the first half of financial year 2015/16 with a year-on-year increase in its result. At the same time, the company announced more strategical changes, among them the planned sale of Specialist Group. In the hotel sector, RIU achieved an improvement while Robinson suffered by the Turkey crisis and additional costs.

Dubai. Nobody can escape the impact of war, terror and political turbulence at the moment. And this is especially true of the Arab world in which the negative trends from 2015 are now intensifying. Occupancy and revenues per available room are falling sharply in the hotel industry. Banks are becoming more selective, hotel projects are falling behind schedule - and nobody wants to speak about the problem. So it was after 2008 too. All the more important then were the market analyses from experts at the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference this year.

Dubai. Dubai has been brought back down to reality, for the second time. After the global crash in 2008, the shining city and indeed the region is now being buffeted by the oil crisis, a dollar peg and global turbulence. A first impression from the Arabian Travel Market and from the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference.

Berlin/Hanover. The bidding battle over the TUI affiliate Hotelbeds is over. The sales to the investment company Cinven and a Canadian pension and investment company was finalized yesterday, April 28, in Berlin.

Bangkok. In the Soneva Kiri Resort in Thailand, Sonu Shivdasani, the founder of Six Senses, has further perfected his concept of intelligent luxury - with a luxury hotel in the form of private residences. On the island of Koh Kood, which still has very little conventional tourist infrastructure, the guest sleeps in a villa in the middle of the jungle, eats in the treetops or simply enjoys the magnificent virgin beach. Here, luxury is lived on plots of between 2,000 and 3,000 square metres. Yet so much privacy can also be purchased - for between USD 1.3 million and USD 15 million. One thing isn't for sale though: the unique Soneva lifestyle practised here. A lesson in luxury.

Alexandria. China's business travel market has overtaken the United States as the number one business travel market in the world in terms of in total business travel spending.

Madrid. This is the time to invest in historical Spanish buildings. International investors have shown a 25% percent higher interest in historical Spanish buildings since the beginning of the economic crisis in Spain. 40% of the investors want to convert them into hotels although official support has decreased or even disappeared, and the fiscal framework could be improved.

Saint-Vincent. "Make everybody pay taxes, not just the usual suspects". There is no topic dearer to Bernabò Bocca then the fight against illegal accommodation activities and the so-called "shadow economy": "Just think about how much money you could collect, if only you managed to ask everyone's due, instead of putting us through the mill with bed taxes", remarked the freshly confirmed President of the largest Italian hotelier association to politicians two weeks ago at the Federalberghi's general assembly in Saint-Vincent. Bocca touched as usual on all the hot topics close to the hearts of hoteliers: the shadow economy, the jungle of national and local levies, the never-ending web issue as well as the new industry challenges brought to Europe by the terrorist threat. Yet the atmosphere was euphoric.