HVS EMEA Hospitality Enews - Week Ending 12 June 2009

Missoni Accomplished In Edinburgh | Hotel Missoni? Oh, that’s so 2005. The fashionista that tells you that is correct in their chronology and yet errs in thinking that the brand conceived that year by Rezidor Hotel Group and Italian luxury fashion house Missoni has somehow gone out of style since. On the contrary, the first hotel with the brand opened this week in the Scottish capital Edinburgh – one of the three initial locations that Rezidor and Missoni specified when they previewed the collection in March 2006. Hotels in Kuwait and Oman are known to be following the 136-room Hotel Missoni Edinburgh down the catwalk, but what was not revealed until this week is that another hotel is on the runway and primed for take-off in 2010. The 157-room Hotel Missoni Cape Town, in South Africa, should be open in time to watch the FIFA World Cup.

Flagship Park Inn Launched In Manchester | Hotel Missoni Edinburgh has its predominantly black-and-white colour scheme, Park Inn its candy stripes. Those stripes are now colouring another UK city: Manchester, this time, where Rezidor Hotel Group has opened a Park Inn hotel that will be the flagship for the north of England. The 252-room, four-star Park Inn Manchester, Victoria it is that has that privilege; the hotel sets sail at the head of a fleet of 23 other Park Inns in the UK.

Fortuna Smiles On Courtyard by Marriott | Fortuna CJSC recently presented Marriott International with a management agreement. Two signatures later and a second Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Moscow was conceived. A mixed-use development in the southeastern part of the city will bear the 170-room Courtyard by Marriott Moscow Paveletskaya, which is set to open in 2010. The hotel is the third in Russia to have the Courtyard by Marriott brand.

Abu Dhabi Sustains Jinan's First Hotel | Estidama is the Arabic for ‘sustainability’. It is the principal word in Jinan Hotels and Resorts’ vocabulary and one which the hotels that the company intends to manage will come to define. The first hotel to bring the word to the lips of the wider world is the Jinan Al Dhafrah Hotel and Resort, a four-star hotel with 84 duplex apartments and six suites. The property in Zayed City, Abu Dhabi, will be managed by Jinan Hotels under a ten-year agreement signed by it and Ahmed Khalfan Al Mazroui. Jinan Hotels is looking to be managing at least seven hotels by 2012.

Now Picture Essque In Africa | Essque Hotels is to manage its first hotel in Africa. The Italian developer Maisha is working on the Zalu Resort & Spa, which, as the Essque Zalu, is set to open in 2010 on the east coast of the island of Zanzibar. The five-star Essque Zalu will have 40 suites and nine villas. Essque Hotels, which is the flagship hospitality brand of the Dubai-based Zabeel Investments, changed its name from Tiara Hotels & Resorts towards the end of last year.

Arora Will Finally Get To Open At The Oval | There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip as they say in the world of cricket. Surrey County Cricket Club discovered the truth of this adage when its plans to redevelop part of the Brit Oval found themselves on a sticky wicket not long after they were announced at the start of 2007. Problems relating to the gasometers outside the ground in Kennington, south London, have now been resolved and work to build a new stand and a hotel can begin. The 168-room, four-star hotel will be operated by Arora International Hotels.

Accor Sells A 4% Stake In Club Med | As soon as the month of May is torn from the calendar in the boardroom at Club Méditerranée (Club Med), a hush descends and all eyes turn to the telephone. The board has come to expect a call from Accor. It was in the June of 2004 that Accor took a stake of 28.9% in Club Med, and the June of 2006 when Accor sold a stake of 22.9%. Now, in the June of 2009, a voice representing Accor will come on the line to inform the Club Med board that Accor has sold a stake of around 4%. The banking group Crédit Agricole has taken that stake and has paid €10 million for it. Accor has 98,800 Club Med shares left, and these it will sell on the open market at a date yet unspecified.

Interval International Affiliates Sicilian Resort | The Residence Marsa Sicla’ is the latest property to be embraced by Interval International, entering as it has the vacation exchange network of the provider of global vacation services. The resort and its 82 apartments live on the southern coast of the island of Sicily, in the town of Sampieri.

Kiessling's Corner | Clement Hoteles has opened a hotel in Madrid that is the first to have the company’s new brand Tach by Clement Hoteles. The 81-room, four-star Tach Hotel, in which some €6 million was invested, is close to Barajas Airport. Meanwhile, Sidorme Hotels is to invest a total of €19 million in opening six budget hotels in the Galicia region by 2011. The expansion plan is concentrated on cities such as Vigo, Coruña, Santiago and Lugo. Elsewhere, Hoteles Santos is to open the four-star Porta Fira hotel in Barcelona at the end of 2009. The 120-metre-tall hotel will have 340 rooms behind its distinctive red façade. By Gabriele Kiessling, Analyst, HVS Madrid

The International Hotel Conference 2009 | The International Hotel Conference is a yearly gathering of the great and the good of the hospitality world. This year the faithful will be flocking to the Hilton Molino Stucky in Venice for three days of lively debate, networking and cocktails. The London office of HVS will be represented in strength (as is often the case whenever there are cocktails to be had) – Russell Kett (managing director), Tim Smith (director) and Gabi Baumann (associate director) will all be speaking, while Sophie Perret (associate director), though not giving an address, will be there to lend moral support and guidance. Full details of the conference may be found at .

Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 4-11 June 2009

• Sol Meliá - Shares rose this week on high volatility.
• Whitbread - Shares dropped this week as it was announced that Whitbread will slide from the FTSE 100 to the FTSE 250 during the next quarterly shuffle on 22 June.
• Rezidor Hotel Group - Shares fell this week as Rezidor traded at 2.9% below its volume weighted price of SKr85.25.

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