News & Stories

Zagreb. A holiday country newly aligns itself: Before its EU entry in 2013, Croatia is trying to be the model pupil and handling it with a new seriousness and regulations although it is often against its own welfare and it is still limping behind in the matter of privatisation. Nevertheless, superficially it looks different: Due to the high regular customer share in the self-driving segment, Croatia´s tourism was guided through the recession with relative stability. In 2010, the destination achieved an overnight increase of 6.13 percent. This year, the Croatian tourism professionals even expect a record season.

New York. With the ambition of welcoming more than 50 million visitors within 2012, New York City plan to open more hotels in the next few years.

Munich. For years, the hotel conference "Hospitality Industry Dialogue" at the Commercial Real Estate Fair EXPO REAL has been one of the most popular conferences at the event. This year too, top topics will be discussed on 4 October - topics ranging from the CEO/owner relationship to refinance, and from Asian chains in Europe to hostels, budget and midscale hotels. In future, the discussion rounds will look at the Green City Index and reputation management by social media. Both influence the value of a property.

Frankfurt M. With inquiries, an overwhelming majority of MICE hotels neither question the actual needs nor the individual wishes of the client and with this, are giving away potential revenue. Whether Amsterdam, Hong Kong or New York – in regard to personal communication, the rule is predominantly radio silence. This was the study result of 167 hotels worldwide. They should have answered an email inquiry. The destructive result: 85 percent had not personally spoken with the client or had not called them. Pure failure: Locked out of luring the client with a 30,000 Euro in business order.

Paris. French holidaymakers should stay…in France this summer. More than last year, they will travel inside the country as “the arab spring” geopardize their favourite destinations: Tunisia and Egypt.

Wiesbaden/Augsburg. Hotel managers who had high expectations of the FIFA Women's World Cup have been disappointed. Realists are happy about the free marketing of their locations and slightly increased occupancy. Smaller towns mainly benefit from day tourists and are hoping for more popularity through media coverage in future.

Munich. The HolidayCheck AG hotel evaluation platform has obtained a temporary injunction against Reisen.de concerning unfair advertising.

Hannover. TUI Germany is growing faster than the market in the currently running summer business. The tour operator has particularly grown in the medium-hauls. Nevertheless, it is tightening the prices for winter. Their own hotel concepts are a growth driver.

Frankfurt. The business travel market in Germany outperformed the economy as a whole last year. After the slump of 11 percent at the height of the recession, the number of business trips made by companies with ten or more staff increased by 6.7 percent to 154.8 million in 2010. Overall, companies spent 43.5 billion EUR on business travel.

Innsbruck. Fascinated by the mountains, but irritated by the iPad. This summarizes pretty much the first sales trade fair in Innsbruck, titled “theALPS” Despite a difficult start, the trade fair is planned to be staged on an annual basis. The event managed to achieve its goal of emphasizing the importance of alpine tourism by introducing a new kind of trade fair and network format. Between June 5 and 7, “theALPS” counted a total of 500 participants, among them, 200 tourist experts and 90 purchasers from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe. The eleven regions coming together at this new platform and the international “Best of the Alps” alliance represent 375 million of the 500 million registered room nights in the Alpine region.