This year’s Master Innholders’s General Managers’ Conference was held on the 18th and 19th January at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower in London.It was also filmed and webcast live over the internet. Here you can watch the keynote speeches from both days.
In our first article in this two-part feature we highlighted some key similarities between these fiercely-competitive budget hotel groups. Today, we look at what guests say by analysing recent TripAdvisor reviews for their cheap London hotels and drawing out some stats. The comparison is made easier by the fact that both companies currently have around the same number of hotels in London – though given their rapid expansion plans this could soon change drastically.
Recognising how expensive it can be to find decent accommodation in London, this blog often likes to focus on value for money. Whether it’s to help you identify London’s best B&B, cheap budget hotels, special £1 sales, the best-value rooms or “luxury budget” options further up the scale, we want to help you find real value for money. Not to mention our free hotel WiFi campaign which is rapidly gaining momentum.
A conversation with Mr. Emmanuel Schott, General Manager of the Tiara Chateau Hotel Mont Royal. Located on one of the highest points in the heart of the magic Chantilly forest, just 35 minutes from Paris and only 15 minutes from Charles de Gaulle airport, the 18th century Tiara Château Hotel Mont Royal, inspired by the natural splendour of the region, takes you on a journey through centuries of history.
Back when cocktails were a serious part of life, a man named Frank Meier held sway over the bar at the Ritz in Paris. And when he wasn’t serving drinks to the grand and glorious he found time to write a book, The Artistry of Mixing Drinks, published in 1934. It is a rare volume indeed, having only three limited-edition printings. It is filled with around 300 alcoholic curiosities, many of them worth concocting again, if only for the amusement factor. And who knows? You might find a favourite and bring it back to life.
Intercontinental Hotels Group is trialling new formats at its Crowne Plaza chain with the aim of repositioning the brand. Particular attention is being paid to the public spaces and the food offered in the hotel. It is also testing new ways of offering room service. The trials are taking places in a selection of American hotels over a six-month period, which will eventually result in a global overhaul of the chain.
Campaign for hotel and holiday group NH hotels ran with 'Operation Bikini' slogan. NH Hoteles' ad featured a woman and a girl in bikinis striking poses associated with fashion models. The Advertising Standards Authority received a complaint that the image was offensive because it showed a young girl in a "sexually provocative pose".
A five-star Titanic themed hotel is to be created at the old headquarters of the Belfast shipyard where the doomed liner was built. A planning application has been lodged to turn the former Harland & Wolff headquarters - a listed building - into a 90-bedroom boutique hotel. The building, at Queen's Island in east Belfast, will feature a swimming pool, gym and spa facilities.
Scotland's hotels performed better than the rest of the UK with a 5.3% rise in occupancy in July, according to the accountants PKF. The rest of the UK saw a drop of 4% in the same month. Both Edinburgh and Glasgow had increases in occupancy of 7.7% and 5.1% respectively, although in Aberdeen the figure fell by 6.1%.
Overnight stays in Spain's hotels dropped 5.5 percent in July from the same month in 2008, compared with a 6.4 percent fall in June, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said on Monday.
In the current tough economic climate, a hearty breakfast could be just what's needed to keep your business on track. And for Moscow's top hoteliers, that's exactly what the Hospitality Ideas and Trends (HIT) Club is offering once a month - with bright ideas and networking opportunities taking top spot on the menu alongside a tasty meal. Hosted at a range of the city's biggest hotels - venues so far have included the Ararat Park Hyatt, the Swissotel at Krasnye Holmy and the Ritz Carlton - the events have brought together leading staff from across the hospitality sector.
1,000-room Park Plaza Westminster Bridge to open despite drop in UK tourism and difficulties for hotel companies. It will be London's biggest ever hotel in a generation, boasting 1,021 guest rooms in a dramatic glass-clad heart-shaped building at the southern end of Westminster Bridge. When the £350m project is finished early next year, opening onto a new landscaped and pedestrianised area beside the former Greater London Council's headquarters it will mark the transformation of the polluted roundabout dominated by one of the capital's most unpopular buildings – a concrete GLC "overspill" office which lay empty and vandalised for more than twenty years.
Did you buy tickets or a travel package for Michael Jackson’s comeback concerts starting next month in London? Now comes the news that the superstar died this afternoon after he stopped breathing and was rushed to UCLA Medical Center from his nearby rented home, officials said. In the biggest concert event of the summer — indeed, one of the biggest travel events — Jackson had 18 summer concerts planned in London through August at the O2 Arena, a hugely anticipated series that was expected to resurrect the star’s career. The shows were to begin July 13.
Can the Scottish capital sustain a design-led hotel when companies are forcing travellers to downgrade. Opening a new lifestyle hotel charging up to £550 a night in a regional UK city in the teeth of recession and slump in business travel is either a very brave or very foolhardy move. Scandinavian hotels group Rezidor is clearly hoping it will be the former when it officially opens the Hotel Missoni in Edinburgh on 8 June, the first of its new design-led lifestyle hotel brand located on a prime site close to Edinburgh Castle on the famous Royal Mile.
There are a few odd things about this W hotel, among them the metal detector at the front door and the fact that some prices are given in euros, some in dollars, and some in Turkish lira. Still, the first W in Europe is a terrific hotel. Not only is it fun to stay in, but it is also spearheading the transformation of a neighborhood of old row houses into a high-end shopping district.
Hospitality industry figures have played down fears there will be a shortage of hotel rooms during the 2012 Olympics. According to official figures, 17,000 new hotel rooms will be needed in time for the Olympics to cope with the demand of tourists and sponsors such as Coca-Cola, which says it will require 10,000 hospitality packages and 20,000 hotel rooms for the duration of the Games.
The opening of the first W Hotel in Britain next year, on the site of the former Swiss Centre in Leicester Square, will mark the arrival of a brand that has helped to redefine the luxury boutique segment in the United States. Today, however, the global recession and weak travel demand means more empty rooms and downward pressure on room rates, both in London and New York. In such a period, the American market, with a mature, competitive, branded hotel landscape, with approximately 67 per cent of the rooms estimated to be affiliated to chains and with over seven times as many rooms as the UK, provides a useful reference point.
A British company aims to raise up to £50 million to fund an unprecedented buying spree of Japan's “love hotels” — exotic hostelries that have, for decades, offered convenience and fantasy to couples at a competitive hourly rate. The AIM-listed group Japan Leisure Hotels (JLH) will use the capital to exploit the still-falling Japanese property market and funding difficulties among would-be consolidators of love hotel chains in Japan itself. JLH said that it was planning to more than quadruple its present room total, eventually capturing the economies of scale that have long been elusive in the love hotel business.
CitizenM, a new hotel brand that refreshes the notion of turnkey, is selling luxury at a budget price, said Rattan Chadha, company chairman. Not only did CitizenM just open its second hotel Amsterdam, its first, which opened at the Dutch city’s Schiphol Airport last year, is doing bang-up business. “We’re getting a lot of business from up markets,” Chadha said. “Everybody’s getting more budget-conscious, so I think we’re in the right place at the right time.” For now, CitizenM, an urban business hotel concept, is confined to Europe. But there are plans to develop the brand in the United States and India, says Chadha, former owner of the Mexx fashion company and a partner of Oberoi International Hotels and Resorts.
A senior figure in an association representing Dutch hotels, restaurants and caterers has urged hotel members to encourage guests to avoid paying with American Express cards. Frans Hazen, chairman of the hotels section of Royal Horeca Netherlands, which has 2,000 hotel members, told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that Amex's merchant fees are too high. According to Hazen, his members pay an average of 1.5 percent to MasterCard and Visa but 2.95 to 3.85 percent to Amex. As a result, he has suggested member hoteliers ask guests to pay with an alternative card or by cash. "Experience shows that nine times out of 10 they have another credit card with them," said Hazen. Royal Horeca has a diverse range of member hotels, including large properties for international business travelers. A spokesman told EuroBTN it is seeking a meeting with Amex to discuss its grievances about merchant fees.