| Will Dawnay Shore Hotels Take On The Marston Challenge? |
| Even as it sat digesting Paramount Hotels earlier this month Dawnay Shore Hotels (DSH) spoke of its hunger for complementary four-star properties. Could Marston Hotels be the dish that the newly formed company tucks into next? The Times seems to think so. Dominic Walsh reports that talks between DSH and Marston are at an advanced stage; the newspaper predicts that Marston's 15 UK properties could fetch between £150 million and £200 million. The report in The Times adds that Dawnay Shore Hotels may also have had talks with entrepreneur Jack Petchey over a possible acquisition of Hanover International, the company which Petchey took private last summer. |
| A Light Breeze Carries Protea Hotels To London | Return to Headlines |
| South African chain Protea Hotels this month celebrated the twentieth anniversary of its foundation by heading for London to operate two hotels. The 29-room Beaufort Hotel Knightsbridge and the 28-room Amsterdam Hotel in Earls Court will be sister properties for the 40-room John Howard Hotel in Kensington. Cross the city from west to east and you will find Apex Hotels near the Tower of London executing the plans for its first property outside its native Scotland. The transformation of an office building in Seething Lane into the 122-room, four-star Apex City of London Hotel is already underway, and the property is expected to open early next year. Southeastwards from there, fireworks should be the very least one might expect to herald the plans that the London Development Agency and Berkeley Homes have for the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. A 120-room hotel will be one feature of the proposed ten-hectare mixed-use development, which is the biggest project Berkeley has yet taken on. | |
| US$29 Million To See The Ambassador In St Petersburg | Return to Headlines |
| Reports in the Russian press note that ZAO Petersburg Hotels has secured a loan of US$12 million from Sberbank towards the US$29 million cost of raising the Ambassador hotel complex in the city of St Petersburg. The complex is set to be ready by next April, and that is the time when the Moscow Investment and Building Company plans to start work on a 100-room, four-star hotel in the St Petersburg suburb of Peterhof. Meanwhile, across in southwest Poland, the authorities in the town of Polanica-Zdrój reportedly want to join forces with two IT firms – Wroclaw-based Microtech International and Network Quality Intelligence of France – to create a technology park in the town that would have hotel accommodation. Lying across the Baltic Sea from Poland is the Swedish city of Malmö, which is where native catering group Luftkastellet Malmö is said to want to build a luxury 300-room hotel. | |
| Accor Buoyant At The End Of The First Half | Return to Headlines |
| When the whistle blew on the stroke of 30 June to signal the end of the first half, Accor could congratulate itself on finishing 5.3% ahead in like-for-like revenue. The company had grown stronger as the half wore on, with its hotels returning €2.5 billion of the total €3.4 billion of revenue scored. The star players in the upscale and midscale hotels were drawn from the USA – they returned like-for-like revenue growth of 19.8% – and from the UK, where the increase was 13.0%. Spain showed an identical increase to the UK, although its work was performed wholly in the economy section. Accor's owned, leased and managed economy hotels in Europe took the accolades in the RevPAR stakes with a rise of 3.8% on the previous year's comparable. The corresponding properties in the upscale and midscale division finished with RevPAR up 3.6% on the previous year. | |
| Jurys Doyle Is On Its Game In Dublin | Return to Headlines |
| Jurys Doyle Hotel Group has reached an agreement with the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) that will give the hotelier its tenth property in the Irish capital Dublin by late summer 2005. The GAA secured planning permission for a hotel opposite the Croke Park sports stadium towards the end of last year, and now developer McAleer & Rushe, whose van it seems is always parked close by when Jurys Doyle has need of a builder, will set to work on the four-star Jurys Croke Park Hotel. Jurys Doyle will take a 34-year operating lease from the GAA on the 232-room hotel, which is expected to cost some €30 million to build. Another developer at large in Ireland is Gerry Maguire, who is reported to have agreed to pay close to €6.5 million for the privately owned 50-room Imperial Hotel in the northeastern town of Dundalk. | |
| Sol Meliá Heads Into Summer On A High | Return to Headlines |
| Sol Meliá is heading into summer full of expectation after seeing EBITDA for the first six months of 2004 climb 13.2%, to €102.7 million, and revenue rise by 6.9% to €488.5 million. The terrorist attacks in Madrid in March led to an 8.2% fall in second-quarter RevPAR at the company's hotels in Spanish cities. Thus, despite strong performances in London and Paris the European City Division finished the first half with RevPAR 1.6% down on the previous year's comparable, at €53.0. Marketwide RevPAR at the company's owned and leased hotels was 0.6% lower, at €42.2. | |
| Malmaison Is Going Down To Liverpool | Return to Headlines |
| Liverpudlians should see the Malmaison flag flying over their city in summer 2006 after the hotel chain, whose name has been linked with Liverpool for at least the last five years, brought all such speculation to an end by revealing that Princes Dock will be the location for what would be its tenth hotel in the UK. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company is awaiting planning approval for a 131-room hotel that will be topped with 41 luxury apartments. The road to the Beatles-themed Hard Day's Night hotel has been similarly long and winding, but work on the project, which will see developer Bowdena transform Central Buildings into a 120-room property, is now underway. At Liverpool John Lennon Airport, meanwhile, passenger numbers are on the rise, and this has prompted Peel Holdings to submit plans for a third hotel adjacent to the airport. The latest property would form part of the Blue Lands South mixed-use development, which in turn stands next to the Wings leisure park; Peel Holdings secured permission last year to develop two budget hotels there. | |
| Taksim Heads West For Hotel Number Eight In Turkey | Return to Headlines |
| According to a report in the Turkish press, native hotel chain Taksim International has chosen the western town of Çesme as the location for its eighth hotel in Turkey. The company will spend a reported US$10 million on constructing a 600-bed property, with work due to start in November 2005. Taksim's compatriot Alarko Holding will divide its time between Istanbul and Antalya as it oversees the construction of one hotel in each city; reports suggest that together the properties could cost as much as US$140 million. At the other end of the Mediterranean, Consortium Maroco-Koweïtien de Développement (CMKD) is reported to have spent US$4.5 million on renovation work at the 90-room hotel operated by Farah Hotels in the town of Safi. In neighbouring Algeria, the country's tourism minister has earned his keep by officially opening five privately owned hotels, totalling 876 beds, in the capital Algiers. | |
| IHG Awaits Developments In Swansea While Development Awaits In Cardiff | Return to Headlines |
| InterContinental Hotels Group is prepared to part with the long leasehold on the 106-room Holiday Inn Swansea in south Wales provided a potential purchaser has at least £5.75 million to spend. Further along the coast £1.8 million is apparently sufficient to cover the cost of a 32-room extension to the 98-room Village Hotel & Leisure Club Cardiff; work is set to begin this November. Development work is due to take place on the other side of the border too, although this is on a larger scale and naturally comes a little more expensive. The press has quoted a figure of £100 million for Park Court Properties' mixed-use project, which aims to bring a four-star hotel and a budget hotel to Coventry, and the same amount for Express Park Developments' mixed-use scheme that forms part of the Manvers regeneration area near Rotherham in South Yorkshire. Express Park's 280-acre portion should feature a hotel. | |
| September Brings Forth The European Hotel Finance & Investment Summit | Return to Headlines |
| On 22 September the Le Meridien Piccadilly in London will be welcoming a host of leading figures from across the hospitality industry to the 4th Annual European Hotel Finance & Investment Summit. HVS International is pleased to be among the sponsors of this important three-day event, and its London office will be represented by Managing Director Russell Kett and Simon Hudspeth, Director. Russell will be moderating a panel on the opening day that will be looking at 'Hotel Real Estate as an Investment', with the event culminating with a presentation from Simon on 'Mastering the Underlying Economics of the Budget Hotel Market'. For more information on the conference, which is brought to you by Euromoney Seminars, visit www.euromoneyseminars.com. click here | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 22/07/04-29/07/04
Hilton Group - SG Securities raised its rating from 'Hold' to 'Buy' as an expression of its greater confidence in the prospects for the group's Ladbrokes betting arm.
Millennium & Copthorne - Teather & Greenwood placed a 'Hold' rating on the stock.
Accor - The company's interim figures drew a mixed reaction from analysts. CSFB maintained its 'Underperform' rating, as Accor's results were below its expectations. Morgan Stanley, however, said the figures showed signs of recovery, and it therefore maintained its 'Overweight' rating.
