O’Callaghan Hotels Group will open its first UK hotel in Cambridge next spring. The Tamburlaine in the new CB1 city quarter development around Cambridge railway station will be designed to appeal to locals as well as both leisure and business travellers. The 155-bedoom hotel will include a restaurant, bar and a standalone café, along with meeting rooms fitted with the latest audio visual equipment.
Chocoholics looking to stay in Bournemouth now have two properties to stay following the launch of the Chocolate Box B&B. The 13-bedroom business joins sister property, the 15-bedroom Chocolate Boutique hotel, which had a starring role in the Channel 4 series Three in a Bed. Both properties are owned by the Wilton family. Gerry Wilton is a chocolatier who launched one of the first companies to import chocolate foundations to the UK. His daughter, 26-year-old Leoni, is the brainchild of the Chocolate Box.
Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury hotel company and a member of Dubai Holding, has appointed Nicola Johnson as Director of Global Business Development – UK, Ireland and Scandinavia – Leisure.
Interstate Hotels & Resorts Europe has recently signed 13 new management contracts to its everexpanding hotel portfolio in the United Kingdom. Located across the country and in major cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Brighton, Edinburgh and Durham, the new signings add over 2,000 more bedrooms to the Interstate Hotels & Resorts Europe family and brings its total number of operational and signed pipeline hotels to 74.
Hyatt Place London Heathrow/Hayes opens today, marking the introduction of the Hyatt Place brand in the U.K. The 170-room hotel joins three Hyatt Place hotels in Europe, including Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport, Hyatt Place Jermuk and Hyatt Place Yerevan. The brand's global growth illustrates the success of the select service model as Hyatt Place hotels continue to create value for guests and owners.
A new report by property consultant JLL and London & Partners, the Mayor of London's promotional company, indicates that London's budget hotel sector has seen significant growth since the city hosted the 2012 Olympic Games.
Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro is to open a boutique hotel in London’s Covent Garden, following on from the success of celebrity favourite The Greenwich in New York. Mr De Niro, working with Capital & Counties Properties (Capco) and BD Hotels, has submitted a planning application for the proposed 83-room hotel, which will be called The Wellington Hotel. The plans would see Mr De Niro, Ira Drukier and Richard Born - the team behind The Greenwich Hotel in New York’s Tribeca district - open their first hotel outside of the US.
Kashyap GOHIL ESSEC IMHI 2006 has been appointed as Vice President Global Development and Planning for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, based in London. Kashyap started in 20016 as Senior Associate Starwood Hotels and Resorts in Brussels, then he joined Westmont Hospitality group and Acquisition manager for 5 years and Transactions Manager for the last 18 months.
Audrey SEIGNE SAADE ESSEC IMHI 2009 has been promoted to Regional Revenue Manager - Midscale and Upscale AccorHotels London. Audrey joined AccorHotels upon graduation as Revenue Manager for Mercure, then for Novotel and Mercure and more recently Audrey held the position of Revenue & Reservations Manager for Pullman London.
STR's preliminary April 2016 data for London, England, indicates relatively flat performance when compared with the same month from 2015.Based on daily data from April, London reported the following in year-over-year comparisons:
The UK's hotel market saw its first decline in average RevPAR (rooms revenue per available room) in four years during the first three months of 2016 adding further fuel to the suggestion that the peak of the hotel property market may have been reached. According to the latest Hotel Bulletin: Q1 2016, published by HVS, AlixPartners and AM:PM, a poor start to the year for hotels in Aberdeen saw RevPAR fall by 37% year-on-year, skewing overall results across the 12 cities analysed. Even excluding Aberdeen's results, the overall market grew by only 1%, its lowest increase since Q1 2012. While London remains a popular destination for Russian and Chinese visitors and investment continues to pour into the city, hotels in the capital saw RevPAR decrease by 2% in Q1 2016, their fifth consecutive quarter of flat or declining figures. 'These figures give us a strong indication that the peak of the UK's hotel occupancy market has been reached and the growth we are seeing now is rate driven rather than occupancy driven,' said HVS chairman Russell Kett. 'For the moment there continues to be strong interest in hotel investment in most parts of the UK, which could continue into 2017, but investors are currently delaying decisions because of uncertainty fuelled by a combination of terrorism concerns, the forthcoming Brexit vote, China's economic situation and the US elections. 'There is a risk that some operators will cut rates in an attempt to stimulate demand, forcing competitors to follow suit. Once room rates fall across the hotel sector the likelihood is that values will soften. This is a big concern for London's hoteliers, particularly with the large number of bedrooms due to open in the next 12 months unless demand starts to pick up again,' he added. According to Hotel Bulletin the best performing city in Q1 was Cardiff, with an average RevPAR increase of 8%, largely due to the World Half Marathon Championships in March. The fact that demand has not been constrained by new supply means that Cardiff has been in the top three best performing cities for the past four quarters. Since December 2011 only 18 new bedrooms have opened in the city. Birmingham was the second best performing city in Q1, with RevPAR growth of 7%, despite supply growing by nearly 800 bedrooms over the past two years. Investment in Birmingham airport means that this trend is likely to continue as new flight routes come on stream. The hotel sector has long been seen as a barometer of the wider economy, says Hotel Bulletin, albeit with inevitable regional variances. In recent months there has been a modest but perceptible shift in sentiment, especially in the investment community where a much greater sense of caution is being adopted over future growth prospects. Download the Hotel Bulletin: Q1 2016 by clicking here.
Jumeirah Group has appointed Paul Skinner as Director of Operations at Jumeirah Carlton Tower, the 216-room hotel situated in London’s Knightsbridge.
Cycas Hospitality, hotel management company specialising in the extended stay market, has introduced the National Living Wage to all full-time UK employees irrespective of age.* Voted Best Employers in Hospitality Award 2015 (Caterer.com), Cycas Hospitality continues to commit to recruiting and retaining the best talent in hospitality.
Leading hotel connectivity solutions provider eRevMax has completed 2-way XML integration with Fastpayhotels, a recently launched B2B hotel distribution platform. Accommodation providers, using eRevMax distribution solutions RTConnect, RateTiger and LIVE OS can now make real-time rate and availability updates and receive automatic transfer of bookings received in the channel.
The Ascott Limited has appointed Roberto De Vivo as food and beverage manager at The Cavendish London. Roberto will oversee the F&B strategy for The Cavendish’s two AA Rosette restaurant, Petrichor. He joins from neighbouring five-star Dukes Hotel where he managed the business development, sales and marketing for the hotel’s three AA Rosette fine dining restaurant THIRTY SIX, as well as its afternoon tea and champagne lounges, meeting and events spaces and room service.
Law firm Edwin Coe LLP has announced it is representing 487 claimants in a class action lawsuit to be heard in the High Court in London next week, "Abbot & Others v RCI Europe". The case, which is listed as a 10 day trial, concerns claims of detriment suffered by members of the RCI worldwide timeshare exchange club, part of the Wyndham Worldwide Corporation.
Bubble Bursts for East Midlands Hoteliers as Profit Stumbles.The 7.0% year-on-year decline in profit per room recorded at hotels in the East Midlands this month was further to an almost uninterrupted period of growth in this measure since January 2014, according to the latest data from HotStats. March also represented the first month in which RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room) at hotels in the East Midlands has dropped since mid-2014, as it fell by 5.6% year-on-year to £42.90, as a result of a decrease in both room occupancy (-3.4 percentage points) and achieved average room rate (-0.6%).
Former Hotelier of the Year Stephen Carter has been appointed general manager of the five-red-AA-star Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa in St Andrews. He joins the hotel today, just over a year after leaving Cameron House on Loch Lomond, where he oversaw a £50m refurbishment and expansion of the resort during his seven-year tenure as managing director. Carter recently undertook an interim role as general manager of the Royal hotel in York, leading the renovation of the property during its transformation to a new urban lifestyle brand being created by Starwood. His extensive experience in leading major development projects will stand him in good stead as he heads the team at the 144-bedroom hotel, owned by Kohler Co, as it too undergoes major improvements. The appointment marks a return to St Andrews for Carter who opened and ran the St Andrews Bay Golf Resort & Spa (now the Fairmont St Andrews) from 2000 to 2006. Previous roles include operations director at Cliveden in Taplow, Berkshire, and general manager at the Caledonian hotel, Edinburgh. Carter’s illustrious career of nearly 40 years includes being named Hotelier of the Year by The Caterer in 2011, having been awarded an OBE for services to the hospitality industry in 2007. His work beyond his day job includes appointments as trustee of the Hospitality Industry Trust Scotland and director of both the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and VisitScotland.
Whitbread is targeting 85,000 Premier Inn rooms by 2020 having predicted that branded budget hotels will account for 29% of the market in four years time. Like for like sales are up 3% at the hospitality group, with total sales up 12% at £2.9b and underlying profit before tax up 11.9% at £546m for the 53 weeks to 3 March. Premier Inn saw total sales grow of 12.9%, with like for like sales up 4.2%. Whitbread currently operates 64,599 Premier Inn rooms, which saw occupancy of 80.9% in the period. Revpar was up 2.6%, compared to 8% the previous year.
The School's co-founder Sir Garry Hawkes and Hotelier of the Year 2014 Danny Pecorelli will receive their degrees at the Edge Hotel School graduation ceremony on Friday 15 July. Described as one of the pioneers within the contract catering sector, Sir Garry is now Director of the Edge Foundation, former President of Hospitality Action, President of the British Hospitality Association, former Chairman of Edexcel and former Chair of the Basic Skills Agency. He went to Huddersfield Polytechnic and studied Hospitality Management for three years. After studying, he rose through the ranks to become chief executive of international catering company Gardner Merchant, leading the management buyout to buy the company. Sir Garry then became chairman of Edexcel, which he later sold to Pearson, the publishers of the Financial Times.