| A New Joint Venture Rolls Up |
| The Stein Group and Sol Meliá have come together in a joint venture that will accelerate the progress of Luxury Lifestyle Hotels & Resorts, which was set up in March 2004 to unite some of Europe's finest small luxury hotels. Sol Meliá brings 12 of its Meliá Boutique hotels to the feast, taking the joint venture's current pot to 57 hotels. The Spanish chain and its new partner aim to draw in at least 150 independent luxury hotels over the next two years, with the pair cooperating in the management, distribution and sales and marketing of the properties. The Stein Group and Sol Meliá will concentrate too on developing a new type of Lifestyle hotel. The initial experiments will be performed in Paris, with The Stein Group rebranding and managing the Meliá Colbert Boutique Hotel and the Meliá Alexander Boutique Hotel. |
| Germany Finds Extra Space For Park Inn | Return to Headlines |
| Rezidor SAS Hospitality continues to make good use of the master franchise agreement (EMEA region) it secured from Carlson Hotels in 2002. Park Inn is one of the brands covered by the agreement, and at the start of the new year Germany welcomed seven Park Inns at one stroke. The hotels share more than mere geography; until the end of last year all had been operating under the Holiday Inn franchise. The seven newcomers are the 162-room Park Inn Bochum; a pair in Cologne – the 120-room Park Inn Köln-Belfortstrasse and the 205-room Park Inn Köln-City West; the 125-room Park Inn Dortmund; the 192-room Park Inn Düsseldorf/Kaarst; the 150-room Park Inn Hannover; and the 93-room Park Inn Kamen/Unna, which stands in the town of Kamen at the intersection of four motorways. | |
| Maybourne Hotel Group Is The New Name For The Savoy Group | Return to Headlines |
| Take The Savoy from The Savoy Group and the result is, as Quinlan Private has found, the problem of finding a new collective name for The Berkeley, The Connaught and Claridge's. Fortunately, the three famous London hotels will not have to suffer the indignity of being owned and managed by 'Group', for the Irish investment firm has the solution: it has chosen the name Maybourne Hotel Group. The company, which has plans to add 35 rooms and a spa to The Connaught, is searching the globe for super-luxury hotels it can buy or develop. All of the action will be overseen by Maybourne's new Chief Executive Geraldine McKenna, formerly the Executive Vice President of the late Savoy Group. | |
| Hostmark Postcard Has An Egyptian Postmark | Return to Headlines |
| The Egyptian Ministry of Interior has chosen the US management firm Hostmark Hospitality Group to be the operator of a 225-room hotel that is to open this autumn in the city of Alexandria. Hostmark is no stranger on Egyptian shores, as it currently manages the 230-room Grand Seas Resort Hostmark in Hurghada. Meanwhile, the government of Morocco is reportedly interested in hiring Renta Corporación to build a resort on the coast near Tangier. If the Spanish property developer secures the €300 million contract, then it will cover some 235 hectares with a mix of hotels, apartments and assorted leisure facilities. | |
| Accor Posts A Rise In Full-Year Sales | Return to Headlines |
| Accor's total revenues of €7.1 billion for the year ending 31 December 2004 were an improvement of 4.6% (like for like) on the previous year's figure. The hotel division's contribution to the total was €5.0 billion, with the upscale and midscale properties seeing their revenues for the year rise by 5.0% (like for like). The European brethren among these categories saw like-for-like RevPAR rise 2.4%. The increase in like-for-like RevPAR among the economy hotels in Europe was 2.7%. Accor has taken heart from the revenue returns and is thus confident in its earlier claims that pre-tax profit for the year will be between €570 million and €590 million. | |
| Pandox Takes Its First Step Into Asset Management | Return to Headlines |
| Swedish hotel company Pandox has announced that it is to make its first move into asset management. The company will begin by testing its property management and development skills at the Quality Hotel Prince Philip. The 201-room property in the Swedish capital Stockholm is owned by Eiendomsspar, which, with its joint venture partner Sundt, completed the takeover of Pandox in the early part of last year. | |
| Malika Takes Its Fourth Trip To Uzbekistan | Return to Headlines |
| The Malika Hotel Group, a US joint venture, has packed its suitcase with the US$400,000 lent to it by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and set off for Uzbekistan. The route is a familiar one – Malika already has three hotels in the country, in Tashkent, Samarkand and Khiva. The company's destination on this occasion is the southern city of Bukhara where it is to use the money to build the 50-room Malika Hotel Bukhara. | |
| Holmes And The Case Of The Elmville Five | Return to Headlines |
| Elmville, a joint venture formed by Corus Hotels and Intermediate Capital Group, has a portfolio of five hotels and a leisure club in the UK that went up for sale last September with an asking price of £46.5 million. Four months on, and Leverguide, an investment vehicle newly established by the two families behind Admiral Taverns, has paid an undisclosed sum for the portfolio. The 138-room Richmond Hill Hotel and its neighbour in Richmond-upon-Thames, the 68-room Richmond Gate Hotel, together with the 53-room Buckerell Lodge Hotel in Exeter, the 48-room Castle Inn Hotel in Bassenthwaite in the Lake District and the 45-room Makeney Hall Hotel in Derby, will all be leased to Folio Hotels. This too is a new company, and one which has been established by two former managing directors of the Regal Hotel Group, Nicholas Crawley and Charles Holmes. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 20/01/05-27/01/05
NH Hoteles - The share price responded to positive news in Spain on the outlook for tourism in 2005.
Accor - Full-year revenues were in line with the expectations of Bear Stearns, which kept its 'Outperform' rating, and those of Deutsche Bank, which maintained a 'Hold' rating.
InterContinental Hotels Group - Lehman Brothers began its coverage with an 'Underweight' rating and a target price of 600p.
