| Starwood's Search Ends With W In Barcelona |
| Starwood Hotels & Resorts has spent more than five years searching and has now found what it has been looking for: that ideal first location in Europe for its boutique-style W brand. And that wonderland is the Spanish city of Barcelona, where real estate firm Sacresa and construction companies FCC, Comsa and OHL, having signed a long-term concession agreement on the site with the city's Port Authority, are raising the W Barcelona. The 475-room property, which will form part of a mixed-use development on the Nova Bocana, is set to open on the waterfront in 2008. HVS International's Madrid office provided the feasibility study on the original project. In contrast to the W brand, the NH brand is to be found in numerous locations in Spain and these now include the San Sebastián de los Reyes Business Park on the outskirts of Madrid, which has welcomed a 100-room hotel. NH Hoteles' compatriot JM Hoteles has been in existence for a mere ten months yet already it is looking forward to operating its fourth property in Spain. Real estate firm Torrecasa, which owns JM Hoteles, is to take charge of building work set to start within the next four months on a 200-room hotel in Piedralaves, in the mountainous Sierra de Gredos region of central Spain. |
| SEA Might Bring A Hotel To Malpensa Airport | Return to Headlines |
| Società Esercizi Aeroportuali (SEA), the manager of Linate and Malpensa airports in the northern Italian city of Milan, has plans to build a four-star hotel at Malpensa says a report in the Italian press. The hotel would stand next to Terminal 1, have 400 to 600 rooms and be ready to open in 2007. SEA is apparently seeking a suitably qualified company to take on the project, and the successful party would be offered the chance to operate the property for 35 years. Four-star is the rating that appeals too over the border in Austria, where a group of investors plans to invest a reported €14.7 million in the construction of a 150-bed hotel and an associated wellness centre in the town of Gröbming. Elsewhere in the country, Loipersdorf Die Therme will start work next year on a spa complex costing a reported €16 million in the southern town of Bad Bleiberg. | |
| The Seventh Sofitel: Now Showing In Morocco | Return to Headlines |
| The Sofitel brand has called in on Morocco for a seventh time and on this occasion the southwestern city of Agadir has the welcome mat out; the 273-room property is the result of renovation work carried out on the former ABS Hotel. The mat that Tunisia puts out for Iberostar Hotels & Resorts has been scuffed for a tenth time by the Spanish chain on its arrival in Port el Kantaoui to open the 395-room, four-star Iberostar Royal Kenz Hotel. Elsewhere, Southern Sun Hotels has journeyed up from South Africa, met with Beta Consortium and announced that together they will redevelop the site of the Ikoyi Hotel in Lagos. The property, formerly owned by Nigerian Hotels, will be converted into a 150-room Holiday Inn and a 100-room, de luxe four-star Southern Sun hotel. | |
| Olga Polizzi Insures Endsleigh's Future | Return to Headlines |
| Businesswoman Olga Polizzi is reported to have completed the £3 million purchase of Endsleigh House, a Grade I listed property that stands to the west of Tavistock in the county of Devon; the house will now be transformed into a luxury 15-room hotel to be run by Olga's daughter Alex Polizzi. Grade I listed properties in the southwest of England are in demand it would seem – the Dukes Hotel in Bath now has a new owner. Some five months after it was put up for sale with an asking price of a reported £2.25 million, the 18-room property has been purchased by the Hilstone Corporation for an undisclosed sum. Perhaps it was the period charm of the Quality Hotel Kensington that drew investment company Western Heritable to southwest London, where it handed fellow investment firm International Currency Exchange close to a reported £7 million for the 72-room, three-star property. | |
| Golden Tulips From Rotterdam And Amersfoort | Return to Headlines |
| AHM Hotel Group has rolled up the Best Western flag at two of its properties in the Netherlands and instead hung out the banner bearing a brand with which it is already familiar: Golden Tulip. The hotels in question are the 90-room, four-star Golden Tulip Berghotel in the town of Amersfoort and the 98-room, four-star Golden Tulip Rotterdam Airport Hotel. This deal brings Golden Tulip Hotels' hotel portfolio in Benelux to 81, a total of 7,048 rooms. | |
| Radisson SAS Anchors In Ankara | Return to Headlines |
| Radisson SAS Hotels has opened its second hotel in Turkey: the Radisson SAS Hotel, Ankara. The 202-room property has been transformed from the former Stad Hotel thanks to US company Turner Construction International and the US$160 million Emek Hotels Renovation Project, which was announced in April 2003. The project aims to restore six hotels owned by the Turkish Pension Fund to four-star or five-star status. Meanwhile, down on the south coast in the resort of Kemer the Tuncer family has opened the 110-bed Q-Max Apart Hotel. | |
| Malmaison Is On Its Way To Belfast | Return to Headlines |
| The Malmaison hotel chain has, as scheduled, taken over the McCausland Hotel in Belfast from Landmark Hotels, and can thus begin a programme of renovation work to make the 62-room Malmaison Belfast the company's first hotel in Northern Ireland. On the other side of the border, the family-run Carna Bay Hotel in Connemara, Co. Galway, is for sale with an asking price of a reported €2.5 million. The 26-room, three-star property has planning permission in place for the addition of 34 guest rooms and a leisure centre. Hotels on the other side of the Irish Sea also have their eyes on expansion. Oriel Leisure has been given permission to add 34 rooms to the 100-room Express by Holiday Inn Newcastle-Metro Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, while over the border in Scotland European Development Company (Hotels) wants to add 69 rooms to the 50-room Westhill Hotel in Aberdeen. | |
| Mövenpick Trumpets A First Hotel In Aswan | Return to Headlines |
| Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts is to operate its first property in the Egyptian city of Aswan after it signed an agreement with the Egyptian General Organization of Tourism & Hotels (EGOTH) on the former Aswan Oberoi. The 244-room resort will be renamed The Elephantine Island Resort Aswan. Elsewhere in the region the emirate of Dubai is home for a second time to Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts after the company opened the 250-room, de luxe four-star Traders Hotel, Dubai. | |
| Bulhotel Charges Off To The Black Sea | Return to Headlines |
| Bulgarian investment company Bulhotel has headed to the Black Sea coast to open the US$12 million 420-bed, four-star Bella Vista Beach hotel complex in the resort of Sinemorets. The hotel would have been clearly visible to Spanish tour operator Pullmantur on its recent cruise along the coast scouting for likely hotels to buy or possible sites to build on. If the company's eyesight was especially keen then staring inland it would have seen Lozenetz Inn and Bulbuild open their new hotel in the capital Sofia: the 31-room, three-star Hotel Lozenetz. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 01/07/04-08/07/04
Gresham Hotel Group - Precinct Investments raised its offer price to €1.4 a share and extended the offer to 22 July.
Sol Meliá - Certain travel-related stocks fell amid renewed concerns about a rise in oil prices.
Hilton Group - The share price fell on profit taking.
