Ukraine Fills Up With Etap | Universal Investment Group (UIG), of Ukraine, is to spend a reported €100 million on the development of 25 Etap hotels in its home country by 2012. The budget hotels, which will share a total of 2,800 rooms, will be managed by a joint venture created by UIG and Accor. Reports suggest that some of the hotels will be built alongside petrol stations owned by UIG. All of the main cities in Ukraine are destined to join in the feast, with the capital Kiev, Lvov, Kharkov and Odessa set to be the four earliest beneficiaries.

Home Properties Plans To Buy The Quality Hotel 11 | Those who hold shares in Home Properties have at least one more duty to perform before they can put their feet up for Christmas. Shareholders meet on 19 December to make a decision on their company’s desire to spend some SKr600 million (roughly €58 million) on the purchase of the 260-room Quality Hotel 11 and the adjoining conference centre Eriksbergshallen. The buildings have a waterfront location in the port of Gothenburg, in southwestern Sweden. If the shareholders give their approval, then Home Properties will take ownership on 1 January 2009.

Nothing Slow About Adagio | In early 2007 Accor and Pierre & Vacances established a 50:50 joint venture for the purpose of developing aparthotels in Europe. In the months since, Switzerland, France and Italy have all partaken of the aparthotels – with the brand Adagio City – and now it is the turn of Germany. The partnership has signed an agreement with Spectrum Real Estate to bring an Adagio City aparthotel to the city of Munich. The property, which will have a mix of 123 studios and one-bedroom apartments, is set to open in 2010. Belgium and Austria: your time will come; over the next two years these countries will be visited as the advance continues towards a desired total of 50 aparthotels across Europe by 2012.

Crowne Plaza Resort To Be Developed In Oman | Omran, an arm of the Omani government, has stretched out a hand to shake the hand of its old friend InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) and bid the hotelier welcome once more to the sultanate of Oman. Omran and IHG are to work on the development of the Crowne Plaza Duqum Resort, which is set to open in 2011. The resort, which will have 228 rooms, will be built near the town of Duqum, which stands on the Arabian Sea coast. IHG’s other Crowne Plaza Resort in Oman is also owned by the government and is farther south along the same stretch of coastline, in Salalah.

Jurys Retired | The name Jurys Doyle Hotel Group is no more. From now on you must address the Irish hotel group as The Doyle Collection. There are 11 hotels in the collection, shared among the Republic of Ireland, the UK and the USA, and those hotels which had the Jurys prefix to their name are to shed that prefix. The Doyle Collection will position itself in the five-star sector and nine of the 11 hotels will ultimately be completely refurbished.

A Hotel For Durham Tees Valley Airport | Robin Hood has one and John Lennon will have one; so, thought Peel Holdings, back in September, we ought to apply for our third airport in England to have a hotel too. That third airport does not rejoice in the name of a well-known person; it is plain old Durham Tees Valley, but a lack of celebrity endorsement has not led to the airport’s being any less successful in gaining a hotel. The planning permission that Peel applied for in September has been granted, paving the way for the development of a 100-room, three-star hotel costing £8.5 million. Peel noted that the hotel, which will be constructed near the terminal building, would be operated under a franchise from a “well-known international brand”.

Two For Thon | Thon Hotels will in January 2009 add two spa hotels to its chain of hotels in its native Norway. Both hotels are in the ski resort of Geilo, which lies roughly halfway between the cities of Bergen and Oslo. The 134-room Vestlia Resort and its sister hotel the 160-room Highland Hotel & Spa are owned by Pål Gundersen.

Kiessling's Corner | Confortel has opened its first hotel in Zaragoza: the Confortelo Romareda. The four-star hotel has 90 rooms. Meanwhile, AC Hotels has opened the five-star grand luxe AC Baqueira next to the ski station in Val de Ruda (Lleida, western Catalonia). The newly built hotel has 102 rooms. Some time within the next month Grupo Fuentepizarro will be opening a four-star hotel with 28 rooms that will be 20 minutes from Madrid. And The Arts Hotel, in Barcelona, is to give its top two floors over to the creation of a room of more than 1,000 m² that will be used exclusively for special events. The project will cost up to €2.5 million and will be finished by next spring. The hotel will remain open while the work is carried out. By Gabriele Kiessling, Analyst, HVS Madrid

Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 27 November-4 December 2008

  • Accor - Jefferies International reiterated a 'Buy' rating but cut its target price from €49.0 to €42.0.
  • Millennium & Copthorne - The share price slipped at the end of last week as the company announced that the proposed sale of a hotel in Korea had fallen through.
  • Starwood Hotels & Resorts - Joseph Greff, an analyst at JP Morgan, cut the company's full-year earnings estimate from US$2.07 a share to US$2.05.