News & Stories

San Francisco. Airbnb announced this week that it will begin to support business travelers through a partnership with Concur, a leading provider of spend management solutions and services in the world.

Dehli. The new Indian government has avowed itself to "zero tolerance" after the public and deadly rapes of women in India. Such occurrences endanger tourism as well, and tourism has to be promoted by all means as a growth engine. However, despite the terrible incidents, the current tourism figures remain stable.

Granada. Figures show: The halal tourism is growing. To look at how the industry can capitalize on one of the fastest growing sectors in the world, Europe is hosting the first-ever international conference on halal tourism. Experts say, Germany is one of the main targets for Muslim tourists in Europe.

Hanover/London. TUI AG and tour operator TUI Travel Plc intend to merge to become the world’s leading tourism group. The synergies created will result in annual cost savings of EUR 45 million and an acceleration of growth. The company is to be headquartered in Germany.

Florence. Italy has a new national convention and MICE bureau. Founded in Florence a few days ago, the new organization is a privately held network composed of travel, hospitality and congress companies.

Frankfurt/M. Day trips are revving up the city tourism in Germany. Three billion have been attributed to the Germans – eight times as many as the overnight stays in commercial accommodations.

Frankfurt/M. The business travel market in Germany has grown once more. The number of the business trips has increased from 2012 by 2.9 percent to 171.1 million in 2013. With this, the pre-crisis level has been crossed in spite of persistent challenges within the market.

Campo Bahia. Owner Christian Hirmer and Treugast CEO Stephan Gerhard from Munich are pleased: The German national football team had settled into the Campo Bahia near Porto Seguro in Brazil this week. Against all gloomy predictions, the resort was completed yesterday and on time for the World Championship starting whistle. According to media reports*, the prominent guests are exceedingly content up to now. Stephan Gerhard, with his Treugast being responsible for the pre-opening and the completion of the resort, landed back in Munich yesterday to take short a breath, until he flies back today again … The path to the hotel opening was unwieldy to the end.

Doha. Qatar will master it … The Head of Tourism of the independent Arab emirate is extremely confident – not only with a view toward the planned Football World Championship in Doha in 2022, but also toward the entire tourism development of the country over the coming years. "We would like to maintain our deep cultural roots," Issa Mohammed Al-Mohannadi, Chairman of the Qatar Tourism Authority, confidently emphasised in a conversation with hospitalityInside.com four weeks ago in Dubai. And this should also remain so after 2022. The mega sports event has moved the small, but richest country on earth into the global footlights and into criticism: They are prepared to position themselves for all challenges, but not to surrender every principle. This sounds like a balancing act. The core statements from the uppermost Qatari tourism strategist.

Dubai. Hilton, Carlson Rezidor and IHG are currently filling major portions of their pipelines with projects in the Middle East, or Saudi Arabia, to be more specific, similar to Accor and Wyndham, as our Dubai-based author Dania Saadi described last week in the first part of this focal article. When it comes to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the most attracting factor is the sheer volume of business that needs to be handled. In comparison, the increasing competition for low-priced land hinders expansion in the Arabian Emirates. Each hotel chain, however, comes with both its own brand recipe and potpourri which, in turn, leads to different approaches.