News & Stories

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.

Spielberg. For the first time since 2003, the Formula 1 race cars will once again take their laps on June 22, 2014 in Spielberg in Styria, Austria. Red Bull boss, Dietrich Mateschitz, has invested 240 million Euro in the revitalisation of the ring as well as in the hotels, catering trade and leisure offers.

Dubai. Hotel development in the Middle East, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, is booming as the Gulf countries invest in new infrastructure, undertake aggressive tourism marketing strategies, and continue to diversify the economy away from oil, hotel operators have said. In the process, individual countries consider the hospitality sector more a national job motor than an honest touristic invitation towards travelers from all over the world. Since the emirates of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar are caught in a fierce competition for hotels and hotel operators while being increasingly subject to the classic market mechanisms determined by supply and demand, Saudi Arabia is just starting to pick up: only this kingdom is able to grow rampantly with its 30 million inhabitants; its financial power, and the never-ending religious tourism make the country the new favourite of hotel operators. Those planning to test run a new brand in the Middle East first go to Saudi Arabia. Dania Saadi spoke to the head developers of the major hotel chains asking them why they were so strongly committed and in which markets. Today we start with Accor and Wyndham and follow up next week with Hilton, Carlson Rezidor and IHG.

Frankfurt. The MICE market is facing new, demographically-conditioned challenges. Meeting planners are increasingly being confronted with participants of the most various of generations and wishes. The IMEX in Frankfurt presented knowledge and solutions regarding this.

Trieste. Just like every year, the members of the largest Italian hospitality entrepreneurs' association, Federalberghi, recently met at Trieste for the annual general meeting. But the 2014 convention was different from the last meetings: after a long stormy period, the first three months of 2014 finally put a bright light on the future of the Italian hospitality industry. At the same time, Italian hospitality officials are starting to question infrastructure, taxes and old structures of tourism bodies just as they have started to intensify proceedings against OTAs and TripAdvisor.

Frankfurt. The German meeting and events market continues to grow. This creates desire. Hand in hand with the growing number of events, the number of meeting, conference and event locations has grown. German meeting and event venues counted 371 million participants last year, 2.5% more than the year before. Since 2009, visitor numbers have been growing continuously. Since 2007, more and more participants from abroad stimulate the German MICE market. Again, Germany underlines its leading role in Europe as a conference and meeting destination. Very positive: organizers are being given increased budgets.

Dubai. There was no shortage of fanfare at the 10th "Arabian Hotel Investment Conference" that took place in Dubai on May 4-5, 2014. This annual event celebrated its anniversary in style, and it also trumpeted Dubai's win of the World Expo 2020. The impact of the Expo was evident in almost every speech, more so than the other mega event coming to the region, the World Cup 2022 in Doha, Qatar. All these events and other government-led tourism projects are meant to create a new source of income for the Gulf countries that are diversifying their economies to generate non-oil growth. To do that they are expanding airports and ports, building new roads, bridges and hospitals, increasing the fleet of airlines such as Emirates and beefing up their marketing campaigns for tourism to woo more visitors.