News & Stories

Madrid. Since 2008, Spanish urban hotels suffered dramatically while beach resorts increased profitability. The battle between cities, sun & sand is on.

Zurich. The convention business is an important mainstay of the Swiss tourism economy and accordingly, a great deal is currently being invested in conference centres and hotel beds. But, the market is tight and the competitive pressure is rising. Davos is not above all and not everywhere is the added-value from the mega conventions as high as it is there. However, the mega conventions themselves are even withdrawing from Davos. A significant investment backlog rules in many MICE centres in Switzerland while in contrast, the likely most spectacular new construction of a convention property has sprung up in Lausanne. A review.

Zurich/Burghausen. For the first time, the travel search engine Kayak.de will also integrate travel agency offers into the holiday search in addition to the offers by travel portals. The background for this is the consideration that many vacationers are informed at the travel agency and then book on the Internet.

Vienna. The annual destination ranking by the Austrian Hotelier Association produced new top destinations. However, it provides less of an upheaval within the Austrian tourism than a new calculation form.

Dubai. Dubai scored the highest average daily rate in the Middle East and Africa region in January this year, with ADRs rising 12.8 per cent to $308.64 from January 2013. ADR, meanwhile, achieved the highest levels of any January since 2008 and remains the main driver for the double-digit growth in RevPAR. Dubai's hospitality market has rapidly absorbed the influx of new supply and continues to perform exceptionally well. This also encourages investors' interest in this sector. Property prices could return to the 2008 level by the end of 2014, experts believes. They also believe a real estate bubble is far off. The International Monetary Fund has a different view.

Berlin. The hunger for expansion continues, after Asset Light now comes Asset Heavy once again; the growth of the online travel agents is a danger and the Chinese are also slowly becoming interested in the more unusual forms of hospitality. The 60 minute CEO Panel reduced it down to these four phrases at the 17th International Hotel Investment Forum. It is fascinating each year to see what magnet effect this event has. It cannot be the content of the conference. Moreover, it was equally tingling at the front door of the host, InterContinental Hotels in Berlin: Tibetans demonstrated there on Monday afternoon against a planned InterContinental Hotel Resort in Lhasa.

Berlin. The ITB Berlin 2014 summary is short: Halls fully booked, increase in trade visitors and business volume sets new records. Positive forecasts for the global economy boost the tourism sector.

Munich. The tour operator FTI GROUP has gained the internationally-operating resort developer and operator, Samih Sawiris, as a partner.

Sochi. Many things in Russia are different than in Germany, the journalists in particular whose hotel rooms were not completed in time before the Olympic Games in Sochi discovered this. Nevertheless, everything functioned at the local Azimut Hotels and the mood at the new properties was great.

Bern. The Swiss hotel industry can account for a pleasing increase in the number of overnight stays in 2013 – a trend that may additionally continue in the current year. Nevertheless, the profitability problem remains – the pricing pressure continues to be high and the costs environment is burdensome.