Principal Hayley Appears At The New Connaught Rooms | Principal Hayley, the hotel and conference venue group, has been on the London to Glasgow run, picking up a property in each of the cities for an undisclosed sum. Both of the properties were formerly in the portfolio of the Real Hotel Company, which went into administration earlier this year. In London Principal Hayley bought the New Connaught Rooms, a conference venue that Principal Hayley will refurbish for £7 million before relaunching the venue this September as The Grand Connaught Rooms. In Glasgow Principal Hayley acquired the currently closed Central Hotel (the former Quality Hotel Glasgow). The four-star hotel will though reopen, once the new owners have treated it to an extensive refurbishment and an additional 30 bedrooms, in February 2010 as the Grand Central Hotel.

Plenty More Choice In Stockholm | Choice Hotels Scandinavia (CHS) has at a stroke become the biggest hotel chain in Stockholm. All it took was the purchase, for an undisclosed sum, of Nordic Hotels, which was owned 60% by companies run by hotelier Ejnar Söder and 40% by Viamare Invest. The two hotels operated by Nordic Hotels in the Swedish capital, the Nordic Sea and the Nordic Light, will retain the Nordic brand and add a total of 542 rooms to CHS’s portfolio in Stockholm. That portfolio is already bulging with the 1,090 rooms that the Clarion Hotel Stockholm and the Clarion Hotel Sign between them provide. A bigger bag will be needed in the next few years when CHS opens the Quality Hotel Solna Nationalarena and the Clarion Airport Hotel Arlanda.

Heathrow Lands Europe's Largest Holiday Inn Express | Passengers cannot fail to miss it but, it is hoped, pilots will be more careful: the largest Holiday Inn Express in Europe is due to arrive at Heathrow Terminal 5 in May 2011. The first 125 of the total of 300 rooms will be ready a year before then, as work has already started on turning an existing 128-room hotel at the airport into the Holiday Inn Express London Heathrow Terminal 5. InterContinental Hotels Group has signed a franchise agreement on the hotel with Crimson Hotels Group.

Park Inn Heads For Tete, Mozambique | Some dig for coal in Tete, in western Mozambique; others like CR Holdings prefer to dig the foundations for all manner of buildings and then raise those buildings from the ground. One such building is to be found on a 12-hectare development that from the fourth quarter of 2010 will be occupied by the 116-room Park Inn Tete. This hotel will be Rezidor Hotel Group’s second in Mozambique; the Radisson Blu Hotel, Maputo is set to open in the second quarter of 2010.

Mövenpick's Adventures With Ulysse Will End In November | Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts’ management of the Mövenpick Ulysse Palace & Thalasso Djerba will cease on 7 November this year. The 259-room, five-star resort on the island of Djerba, which lies off the southeastern coast of Tunisia, is owned by UTIC Tourisme.

Macdonald Hotels Takes Full Ownership Of Aviemore Highland Resort | The Aviemore Highland Resort in Scotland seems likely to be putting its troubled years behind it. Macdonald Hotels, which has managed the resort for almost 20 years, is now to buy the business outright, thus taking it out of administration. Macdonald Hotels, with the backing of Lloyds Banking Group, will complete the refurbishment of the four hotels at the resort and invest in additional facilities.

Kiessling's Corner | The five-star AB Skipper hotel in Barcelona is now operating under Accor’s Pullman brand. Accor has signed a 20-year management agreement with Axa Reim, which recently acquired the AB Skipper from Grupo Preyco 44. The hotel has 241 rooms and is close to the city’s International Convention Centre (CCIB). By Gabriele Kiessling, Analyst, HVS Madrid

Save Time And Money At The International Hotel Conference | The International Hotel Conference is probably one of the few conferences that can save you both time and money. The seventh conference in the annual series is being held this October at the Hilton Molino Stucky, which has, in honour of the occasion, lowered its rate on a single room from €365 a night to €315. This offer is available until 31 August 2009, so visit click here without delay. So I’ve saved my money, how do I save my time? Well, by the simple expedient of making use of the complimentary shuttle boat service that the conference organisers are providing between Venice airport and the hotel.

Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 18-25 June 2009

  • NH Hoteles - The share price gained towards the end of the week, ending a two-day run of losses.
  • Accor - Oddo Securities raised its rating to 'Buy' and gave a target price of €38.
  • Whitbread - The share price fell towards the end of last week on a report that RevPAR in the UK provinces had fallen by almost 11% in the final week of May.

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