Whitbread - Shares rose this week after the company said that it was in talks to buy Coffeeheaven International for £32 million. | InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) - Panmure Gordon downgraded IHG to "hold" from "buy". | Accor - Shares fell as the company announced that the plan to demerge its Hotels and Prepaid Services businesses has been approved. — Photo by HVS

The Sales Have Started Already | Strategic Hotels & Resorts has agreed to sell the Renaissance Paris Hotel Le Parc Trocadero to an investment group led by an affiliate of Westmont Hospitality for €35.5 million. The sale of the 116-room hotel is expected to complete before the end of January. Strategic, a real estate investment trust, paid Accor €66.5 million for the Hotel Le Parc – Trocadero Paris (as it was then known) in 2007, with the hotel taking the Renaissance brand the same year ahead of an extensive renovation.

Accor Announces Its Demerger | After a review carried out by senior management, Accor’s Board of Directors has said yes to a demerger of the company’s Hotels and Prepaid Services businesses. Accor’s chairman and chief executive officer Giles Pélisson commented that the split would “create a new, solid, sustainable growth dynamic for both businesses, each of which is a global leader in its respective business”. The split is expected to take place by the end of June 2010 at the earliest.

Travelodge Launches A New Fund | Budget hotel company Travelodge has paired up with Twenty10 Fund Management this week to launch a seven-year £100 million expansion fund. The purpose of the fund is to develop five new hotels a year in major cities across the UK. Travelodge will hold 25-year to 35-year leases for the properties. Twenty10 will manage the fund, which will comprise £50 million of equity and £50 million of bank debt (Travelodge is to invest a sum of £500,000).

Accor Prepares Its Christmas Feast | Christmas would not be Christmas without Turkey; and there is Accor overseeing the stuffing. The recipe calls for a 92-room Novotel and a 177-room Ibis to be inserted into the Turkey’s southern extremity; the city of Gaziantep, to be precise. And while those hotels come up to temperature, Accor can turn to the sprouts; and there is an Etap hotel sprouted in northeastern France. The 70-room Etap Hotel Verdun is the 400th hotel in Europe to be wearing the Etap brand.

Two Nikko Hotels Spruced Up In Time For The Festive Season | Slovenly family members can be so off-putting to guests at this time of year; so take a leaf from JAL Hotels’ book and make sure that the members of your family are well turned out this Christmas. The five-star Montcalm Hotel Nikko London is especially spruce, having just reopened after an extensive, year-long renovation. Her sister in Germany – the five-star Nikko Hotel Düsseldorf – is slightly plumper since you last saw her and more radiant after receiving an early present from her beau, Benson Elliot Capital Management. Benson has completed its €6 million conversion of a 5,000 m² office into 85 executive guest rooms and 650 m² of meeting space. The conversion work at the mixed-use Deutsch-Japanisches Center, where the hotel stands, gives the Nikko Hotel Düsseldorf 386 rooms, making her the largest hotel in Düsseldorf.

Moore Hotels For Surrey | Moore Place has in its time been blue on the inside (chef Gordon Ramsay once came calling for his TV series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares) and painted purple on the outside: this restaurant and bar in the town of Esher, in Surrey, is probably tickled pink by thoughts of its impending demolition. Moore Place Holdings wants to replace the eighteenth-century building, which is part of a larger site that includes a nine-hole golf course, with a luxurious 50-room country house hotel. Moore Place Holdings is seeking an established operator to run the property, which will include a spa and leisure centre.

Namibia's First Hilton | Hilton Worldwide couldn’t decide whether to give Namibia, in southern Africa, gold, myrrh or frankincense so it decided on a hotel instead! Wrapped up in a management agreement between Hilton Worldwide and Pride of Africa Hospitality, Africa Pride Hospitality and Namibian private equity firm United Africa Group, the 154-room Hilton Windhoek will become Namibia’s first Hilton property when it opens in April 2010, as part of a mixed-use development, in the capital Windhoek. The hotel is currently under construction and it is being developed for a reported NAD250 million (US$32.5 million).

Hyatt Number Two For South Africa | The village of Herolds Bay, near the town of George, in Western Cape, South Africa, couldn’t wait until Christmas Day this year; it succumbed to temptation and opened one of its presents early! It decided to unwrap the Hyatt Regency Oubaai Golf Resort and Spa and reveal its 100 rooms and its residential villas and apartments to the world. This is Hyatt number two for South Africa, alongside the Hyatt Regency Johannesburg.

Whitbread's Third-Quarter Results | Whitbread released its third-quarter results this week bringing a bit of Christmas cheer to the hospitality industry with the news that its total sales have increased by 6.7%. Like-for-like sales also showed a positive growth of 0.3%. Total sales for the company’s Premier Inn brand increased by 3.5% for the third-quarter of 2009, and like-for-like sales decreased by 3.1%. Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants saw an increase of 3.1% in total sales for the same period, and a decrease in like-for-like sales of 1.0%. Whitbread’s chief executive officer Alan Parker commented that “Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants have again outperformed the market in some of the toughest trading conditions for years”.

Gladen's Tidings | The news from Spain by Esther Gladen, HVS Madrid. The 29-room Marqués de la Ensenada has recently opened as the first five-star hotel in the city of Valladolid, in northcentral Spain. The three-star, 80-room Hotel Virgen de los Reyes opened in Seville, one kilometre from the city’s historic centre.