Benchmark Hospitality International, a leading hospitality management company which operates 30 award-winning resorts, hotels, condominium resorts and conference centers in locations throughout the United States and Asia, announces its annual "Top Ten Meeting Trends," as observed by its properties.
Point To Mercure | EBH, a private company based on the island of Jersey, has paid WG Mitchell Group more than £20 million (the exact amount was not disclosed) for the Point Hotel, a three-star property of 139 rooms that overlooks the castle in the Scottish capital Edinburgh. The deal included a neighbouring bar called The Chanter. The hotel has been rebranded as the Mercure Point Hotel Edinburgh.
Specialised conference and training venues have been the height of fashion recently, especially with private equity firms, but with the competition heating up and the economy cooling down, what are the latest trends and outlook?
“It doesn’t do as much as we can dream. I don’t know if we’ll ever solve that one . . .” This is what one hotel senior executive recently told us when we asked how technology was constraining his business today. We would love to speak to that executive a few years from now and hear that his technology platform does everything he could dream of. That’s our aim and this report is a step towards closing the gap between dreams and reality.
Chain hotels in Paris had the best room sales in January but London took the lead in terms of profit, according to the latest HotStats survey of 10 European cities by TRI Hospitality Consulting.
Warimpex Takes A Firm Grip On The Andel's | Warimpex, the Austrian real estate developer and investor, is now the sole owner of Andel’s Hotel in Cracow, southern Poland. Warimpex paid UBM, its compatriot and long-standing collaborator, around a reported €30 million for the remaining 50%. The 159-room hotel, which is operated by Vienna International Hotels & Resorts, was the first design hotel in Poland when it opened last May.
36.19% of all visits to the online 'Travel' industry went to the top 10 websites for the month of February, 2008. 45.62% went to the top 20 websites and 66.81% went to the top 100 websites.
PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR) today announced that it has lowered its 2008 forecast for a key hotel industry metric, revenue per available room or RevPAR, from up 4.5 percent to up a below-average 3.0 percent. The new RevPAR forecast appears in the firm's recently released first quarter 2008 Hotel Horizons(SM) report. The change was based on revised projections by Moody's Economy.com, PKF-HR's primary economic forecasting agency, which now is calling for a U.S. recession this year due to deteriorating economic fundamentals.
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ latest forecast for the UK hotel sector for 2008 to 2009 calls for a slowdown in demand and decelerating room rate growth but concludes that there is still plenty to play for on the UK hotel scene.
Hotusa Celebrates Independent's Day | Hotusa Group, of Spain, has made a cross-border raid to take ownership of Elysées West Hôtels, which has a chain of 92 independent hotels in its native France. No financial details were disclosed. The acquisition means that Hotusa Group, through its Hotusa Hotels subsidiary, now has a portfolio of more than 200 associated hotels in France.
HVS HWE To Advise On Fletcher's Bounty | The London office of HVS Hodges Ward Elliott (HVS HWE) is to act as the exclusive advisor to Fletcher Hotel Group in the sale and leaseback of the Dutch company’s 23 hotels in the Netherlands. The collection of three-star and four-star hotels has a total of 879 rooms. Rudy Reudelhuber, a managing director of HVS HWE, said: “This portfolio is an excellent opportunity for an investor to acquire a significant Dutch real estate portfolio at an attractive yield with a tenant that has healthy rent coverage.”
Across the United States and Canada, city officials and economic development decision-makers are wrestling with the question of whether to develop new or expanded convention center assets in their communities. Many existing exhibition facilities are not operating at or near full capacity. Even as demand slowed throughout the first part of this decade, supply continued to expand, resulting in facility utilization rates near historic lows. Public policy makers, private developers, and concerned citizens wonder: Is the industry overbuilt?
New Zealand is one of the least inhabited places on earth, one of the most stunning in terms of its natural beauty and, as the home of the first commercial bungee jump, the adrenalin capital of the world. Its popularity with international tourists is steadily increasing, with 4% annual growth expected over the next five years, according to the New Zealand Ministry of Tourism. Jobs in tourism already account for around 10% of the country’s total employment1 and the government has recently launched a strategic plan to ensure New Zealand delivers a world-class experience to visitors.
Summary: The year-end survey of indoor waterpark resorts in the U.S. and Canada by Hotel & Leisure Advisors, LLC (H&LA) indicates that the number of indoor waterpark destination resorts has grown steadily since 2005. There were 30 available properties as of year-end 2005, compared to 43 available properties as of year-end 2006, and 49 available properties as of year-end 2007. The majority of the destination resorts are independent properties not affiliated with a national hotel franchise.
The Eastern Best Western | Best Western International has a toehold in the Middle East. To get its feet firmly under the sand, the company has enlisted the help of Zainal Mohebi Group (ZMG), a conglomerate with its headquarters in the emirate of Dubai. ZMG is to manage and oversee the development of three-star and four-star Best Western hotels in the region and expects to be spending more than Dh2 billion (roughly US$545 million) in the process over the next ten years. The first property to open, in February 2009, will be the US$55 million 220-room Best Western Residences in the Bur Dubai district of Dubai. Locations elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates and in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar are on the list of initial targets.
IHI Wears The Crown | International Hotel Investments (IHI), one of whose principal shareholders is Dubai-based Istithmar Hotels, has paid The Crown Estate £130 million for the Metropole Building (once home to the fashionable Metropole Hotel) and 10 Whitehall Place in the West End of London. IHI will transform the properties into a 283-room, five-star hotel and luxury residential apartments. The Crown Estate announced last June that it was putting the properties up for sale.
35.59% of all visits to the online 'Travel' industry went websites and 66.88% went to the top 100 websites.
Chain hotels in Moscow were the most profitable in Europe in 2007, despite having the lowest occupancy, according to the full-year figures from TRI Hospitality Consulting’s European HotStats service.
All The Talk About Achat | European Hospitality Properties (EHP) will, over the course of this year, complete the purchase of seven hotels in Germany that are managed by Achat Hotels and wear the Achat brand. EHP, an investment fund formed by Dutch compatriots Annexum Invest and Kempen & Co., is to pay a total of €70.2 million for the mix of three-star and four-star hotels. Three of the hotels are located near Munich and there are individual hotels in each of Bretten (near Karlsruhe), Hanover-Langenhagen, Stuttgart and Hoyerswerda.
Very satisfactoryresults of November strenghtens the growth observed in 2007. All market segments have seen their RevPAR increase since January. Both Paris an Province are concerned by this trend, which could make 2007 a record year for many hotels.