| No Putting Off The Ritz Any Longer |
| The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company has laid to rest the press rumours of recent months by confirming that it is indeed to have a first property in Russia. The Ritz-Carlton, Moscow, which will be owned by Kazakhstan’s Capital Partners, will rise near Red Square and have its 332 rooms open by the middle of 2006. |
| Kempinski Takes Up Residence In Istanbul | Return to Headlines |
| Kempinski Hotels and Astas Gayri Menkul have signed a management agreement on the Kempinski Residences Istanbul, which is due to open in the Turkish city of Istanbul in 2007. Guests wishing to invest in one of the residences will have a slightly longer journey up in the lift than those wishing to rent. The 108 luxury residences that are for sale are on the upper floors of the tower and the 34 long-stay residences are on the lower floors. Should you find yourself unable to wait until 2007, then the good news for your nerves is that another set of Kempinski Residences will be available as part of the Kempinski Hotel Barbaros Bay, which is set to open this summer in the resort of Bodrum in southern Turkey. | |
| Marriott Would Like More Rooms | Return to Headlines |
| Marriott International announced this week that it had plans to add 75,000 to 90,000 hotel rooms to its portfolio between 2006 and 2008. Of these, the company said, one quarter would be outside the USA. Marriott also noted that it wanted to see its presence in Europe rise by 15% by the end of 2008. By way of demonstrating its intent, the company this week made inroads into the total by opening the 267-room Courtyard by Marriott Berlin City Center in the German capital Berlin. The property, Marriott International’s third Courtyard by Marriott hotel in the city, was opened under an agreement signed with Krausenstrasse, which is a partnership formed by Bayerische Beamten Lebensversicherungen and Ideal Lebensversicherungen. | |
| Armani Hotels Ready To Strut Its Stuff | Return to Headlines |
| Mention the concept of Armani Hotels and Resorts to any fashionista and they are likely to reply, ‘oh, darling, that’s so last year.’ And while they would be correct in that assertion – Giorgio Armani and Emaar Properties did indeed float the idea in early 2004 – they will need to revise their opinion after the chairmen of the two companies came together this week to sign the contract that formally sets the project in motion. The fashion house has granted a licence to Emaar Hotels & Resorts, a subsidiary newly set up by Emaar Properties, to operate the luxury hotels that will be established. The first of these, a 175-room Armani Hotel, is expected to open by the first quarter of 2008 at Emaar’s Burj Dubai development in the emirate of Dubai. | |
| Hilton Arrives On Time At Mount Wolseley | Return to Headlines |
| The clock struck June and down Hilton International ran to the Irish town of Tullow to begin operating, right on schedule, what is now the Mount Wolseley Hilton Hotel, Spa & Country Club. Hilton announced in April that it had reached an agreement with the Morrissey family on the 143-room, four-star hotel, which stands on the Mount Wolseley Country Estate, to make the hotel its fifth in Ireland and the first in its UK & Ireland portfolio to join the Hilton Worldwide Resorts collection. Hilton could soon have eight hotels in Ireland, after noting that it wanted three more properties open by 2008. In neighbouring Co. Kildare, meanwhile, a group of investors that includes Dr Michael Smurfit has paid the Jefferson Smurfit Group a total of €115 million for the luxury 69-room Kildare Hotel & Country Club, in Straffan, and the site of a former paper mill in Clonskeagh, Co. Dublin. | |
| The Smashing Orangey Bit In The Middle | Return to Headlines |
| An orange glow filling Lexham Gardens, central London, this July will herald the dawn of the latest concept in the budget sector: the easyHotel, where rooms will be available from £5 a night. Two months after this first property opens, the same warm glow from the sign above the door will be awakening the citizens of the Swiss city of Basle to the concept. The first franchisee of the easyHotel brand is local entrepreneur Philipp Fink, whose lowest rate will be SFr30 (£13). | |
| The Dutch Do Though Say 'Yes' To Golden Tulip | Return to Headlines |
| The residents of Harderwijk in the Netherlands knew something momentous was afoot as soon as they saw Golden Tulip Hotels’ (GTH) entire management team assembling in its streets. The team had gathered to witness Phons Grasveld, the owner of what on 1 September will become the Golden Tulip De Beyaerd, sign a franchise agreement; a historic moment, as the 95-room hotel is GTH’s 80th in Benelux. | |
| Could It Be The Trocadero Travelodge? | Return to Headlines |
| Travelodge is reported to be holding talks with the Golfrate Group with a view to its establishing one of its budget hotels in the London Trocadero. Reports last week announcing Golfrate’s acquisition of the property in central London noted that the upper floors of the building might welcome hotel rooms. Talk in London but action in Dublin, where Travelodge is poised to open its third hotel in the Irish capital: a 54-room property in Rathmines. | |
| To A Spanish Nunnery, Go, And Quite Soon Too | Return to Headlines |
| The latest hotel in Spain to join the Design Hotels collective is the Hospes Ámerigo, which is due to open on 9 June. The 81-room hotel in the southeastern port of Alicante occupies what was once a Dominican convent. Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, seeing no reason why it should be cloistered in Spain, has made its eleventh visit to Tunisia. The 276-room, four-star Iberostar Belisaire Hotel is the company’s fifth property in the northeastern resort of Hammamet. | |
| Strathclyde Country Park Might Receive A Luxury Hotel | Return to Headlines |
| There is a corner of Strathclyde Country Park in Scotland that could be forever dedicated to a luxury hotel should North Lanarkshire Council be successful in its quest to find a developer. Luxury is already on its way to Cardiganshire in Wales and it should arrive in late summer. The family consortium that last year purchased the country house Ty-Mawr, which has stood since the seventeenth century near the village of Cilcennin, is busy turning the property into a ten-room luxury hotel at a cost of a reported £1.25 million. Kew Green Hotels is already in position in Luton in Bedfordshire, where it is operating the newly opened 120-room Days Hotel Luton. | |
| The Golden Palace Opens In Yerevan | Return to Headlines |
| The Golden Palace Hotel has opened as the latest five-star hotel in the Armenian capital Yerevan. The 66-room property took four years to build and used money from a Cyprian company. Apparently it has been four years since the Ibis brand first arrived in Romania. Native chain Continental Hotels assisted at the birth then, and it was on hand again this week as the Romanian capital Bucharest was delivered of the 161-room Ibis Bucuresti Palatul Parlamentului, the third member of the Ibis family in the country. | |
| The Ritz Reportedly Ready To Expand | Return to Headlines |
| It is a familiar story: hotel falls in love with the building next door and wants to move in as soon as it can. Many such affairs are doubtless played out and pass unrecorded, but when the protagonists are a celebrity couple the story of course makes the press. The hotel is The Ritz in central London and it is reported to have paid an undisclosed sum for the Grade I listed William Kent House. The Ritz will endow its new partner with two penthouse suites as part of a programme of renovation that will turn the ground floor of the townhouse into a venue for private dining. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 26/05/05-02/06/05
Jurys Doyle Hotel Group - The share price was on the rise again, as Precinct Investments' latest unsolicited approach was pitched at €16.25 a share.
Whitbread - CSFB placed a 'Short-term Sell' rating on the stock as the share price fell on profit-taking after last week's takeover rumours.
Millennium & Copthorne - Citigroup lowered its rating from 'Buy' to 'Hold', feeling that the rate of recovery in US secondary cities, to which M&C has greater exposure, was not as good as anticipated.
