Another Express Delivery: This Time In Spain | Zinnia Hotels Properties Holdings has signed a franchise agreement with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) that will bring 20 Express by Holiday Inn hotels to Spain over the next five years. Zinnia, an investment group from the UK, expects to spend around €180 million on making the plan reality. The first hotel is expected to open in late 2009 in the northern port of Bilbao. IHG currently has 15 Express by Holiday Inn hotels in Spain and has another six under development.

Sol Meliá On The Innside | Sol Meliá has paid €16.5 million for the German hotel chain Innside. Innside has eight hotels in operation in the cities of Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Bremen, and four scheduled to open between 2008 and 2010 in Berlin, Dresden, Düsseldorf and the Austrian capital Vienna. Sol Meliá currently has 16 hotels in Germany. The Spanish hotelier also announced its results for the nine months to September 2007. EBITDA of €271.4 million was up 2.3% on the previous year’s comparable. Revenue of €1.0 billion was up 6.0%.

Enjoy A Mandarin From Spain | The 153-room Mandarin Oriental, Marbella and 61 apartments with the Residences at Mandarin Oriental brand are the key features of a luxury resort that will be managed by Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. The company's second hotel in Spain is being built by Las Colinas de Marbella, the owner of a resort that will include 19 villas, a spa and a private beach club. The resort will open in Benahavís, on the country's southern coast, in 2010.

Aldar And Rotana Work From Home | Aldar Properties and Rotana Hotels, two companies from Abu Dhabi, are joining forces to garnish their home city with four hotels. Two of the hotels have a projected opening date of 2009: one of 300 rooms at Aldar's Yas Island development and one of 250 rooms with the Centro by Rotana brand. In 2012 a five-star hotel with 250 rooms will open at the Al Raha Beach development. The fourth property to be built will be a set of serviced apartments with 165 units.

Ships Ahoy! Mövenpick Adds To Its Fleet | Dam! cries the captain, his shout alerting the crew and passengers aboard the Mövenpick luxury cruisers that they have reached Aswan and journey's end on their trip down the Nile from Luxor. It is a cry that has been heard across the bows of the Royal Lily since the beginning of November. The fourth cruiser on the route Luxor to Aswan to fly the pennant of Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts has 56 cabins. Behind the Aswan High Dam is Lake Nasser. Mövenpick's first cruiser on the other side of the wall is the Prince Abbas, newly refurbished and cutting through the waters with its 65 cabins on its way between Aswan and Abu Simbel. Nile Exploration Corporation owns both of the new cruisers.

Isrotel Builds Above The Ramon Crater | Triskaidekaphobes who are prone to vertigo should not read the following item. Isrotel’s thirteenth hotel in its native Israel will be perched on the cliffs above the Ramon Crater, a natural feature in the Negev desert. A reported NIS110 million (roughly US$28 million) is to be invested in the construction of a hotel with 112 cabins on a site measuring 12.5 acres. The hotel near the town of Mizpe Ramon, where Isrotel operates the 96-room Ramon Inn, will be built by Ashtrom Properties and is due to open in 2010.

Peab To Build Hotel Complex In Stockholm | Peab, the Swedish construction firm, has signed a contract worth SKr1.4 billion (€151 million) with its compatriot Norrmalm 43 i Stockholm, a real estate company, to build Stockholm Klara in the centre of the Swedish capital Stockholm. The development, which is set to be finished by the end of 2010, will include a 418-room hotel, and a conference centre capable of holding 3,000 people. A hotel that is a little smaller is the one that Rezidor Hotel Group has lined up for the ski resort of Norefjell, in southern Norway. The 140-room Park Inn Nore Park is set to open as part of a mixed-use development in late 2008 or early 2009.

Third-Quarter Figures From IHG | “IHG [InterContinental Hotels Group] has had a good third quarter”, said Andrew Cosslett, IHG's chief executive. In the three months to 30 September 2007 IHG made an operating profit before exceptionals of £66 million, an increase of 22% on the previous year’s comparable. Revenue in the third quarter was 14% higher, at £224 million. IHG’s hotels in the EMEA region returned RevPAR growth for the quarter of 6.7%, a performance that could be said to be all about ME (Middle East). Hotels in that subregion saw RevPAR grow by 18.0%.

Millennium & Copthorne Posts Its Third-Quarter Results | Millennium & Copthorne has reported its results for the third-quarter ending 30 September 2007. Late summer into early autumn was a time of growth. Growth of 13.5% in pre-tax profit: it finished on £37.8 million. Growth in revenue of 6.0%, £160.6 million the final figure. And what of marketwide RevPAR? Yes, it grew too, by 9.6%. Chairman Kwek Leng Beng noted that the final quarter had “begun well”, with RevPAR up by 10.5% in the first four weeks of October.

Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 1-8 November 2007

  • Sol Meliá - Deutsche Bank reinstated coverage with a 'Buy' rating and a target price of €16.0.
  • NH Hoteles - Deutsche Bank reinstated coverage with a 'Hold' rating and a target price of €15.5.
  • InterContinental Hotels Group - The share price fell heavily amid concerns about the rising price of oil. Evolution Securities kept a 'Buy' rating but cut its target price from 1,500p to 1,320p.

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