Featured in this EMEA Hospitality Newsletter - Week Ending 7 April 2006
Quinlan and Milan: A World-Beating Combination
Jurys Does Portland A Service
Starwood Works On Another Westin In Spain
EBRD Helps Ibis To Fly Into Russia
Nakheel Takes Africa By The Horn
Kingdom Moves For Mauritian Mövenpick
Capella's Castle In Austria
Robinson Club and Iberotel Set For The Palm
Protea Hotels Namibia Formed
IHG Scales The Heights Then Heads Downtown
The Merchant's Tale About To Unfold In Belfast
Golden Tulip In Control Of Operations In Winterswijk


Quinlan and Milan: A World-Beating Combination
Irish real estate group Quinlan Private will perhaps be reaching for the Guinness with one hand, and with the other beckoning the compilers of Guinness World Records. Its sale of the 118-room Four Seasons Hotel Milano for more than €200 million seems likely to have set a world record in terms of sales price per room. The buyer is the Italian real estate holding company Statuto Group, which set a record last May for the biggest deal in the Italian hotel market. Then it paid Starwood Hotels & Resorts €177 million for the 233-room Hotel Danieli, in Venice.

Jurys Does Portland A Service Return to Headlines
Jurys Doyle Hotel Group perhaps felt its hotel portfolio too fat in Glasgow, whereas Portland Hotels was starved of a presence in the city. But betwixt the two of them they have halved Jurys’ weight in Glasgow and plumped up Portland’s portfolio in Scotland as a whole to six hotels. Portland Hotels is reported to have paid Jurys Doyle close to £10 million for the 137-room Jurys Glasgow Hotel, which is to revert to its former name the Pond Hotel. The new owners are to spend a further £3 million on refurbishment work and are hoping that the hotel, in common with three of Portland’s other properties, will be flying the Best Western flag. Refurbishment is the word of the moment; Portland Hotels is to invest a further £2.5 million in such work at its Speedbird Inn at Aberdeen airport. The 160-room hotel will also grow by 42 rooms.

Starwood Works On Another Westin In Spain Return to Headlines
The Spanish real estate group GMP is to work with Starwood Hotels & Resorts on the construction of another Westin hotel in Spain. The Westin Las Colinas will have 140 rooms and is scheduled to open in 2008 as the focal point of a mixed-use resort development in the southeastern city of Alicante. This latest hotel is the fourth in Spain to have the Westin brand. HVS International advised GMP.

EBRD Helps Ibis To Fly Into Russia Return to Headlines
EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) is to contribute €24 million to a reported total of €40 million that it will take to build three Ibis hotels in Russia. Accor is to join forces with Moscow-based construction firm TempStroySystem and build one hotel in each of the cities of Kaliningrad, Kazan and Nizhni Novgorod. This trio of hotels will be the first Russia has seen of the Ibis brand.

Nakheel Takes Africa By The Horn Return to Headlines
When property development company Nakheel announced in February the formation of Nakheel Hotels & Resorts it noted that a 400-room hotel in the East African republic of Djibouti would be an early entrant into the fold. Nakheel has now identified that property, which will stand in the capital Djibouti, as the five-star Djibouti Palace Hotel and has revealed that Kempinski Hotels will be operating it. The construction of what will be Nakheel’s first hotel outside the Middle East is set to be finished by this November.

Kingdom Moves For Mauritian Mövenpick Return to Headlines
Kingdom Hotel Investments has paid US$50 million (including bank debt of US$19.5 million) to take sole ownership of the Mövenpick Resort & Spa Mauritius. The five-star hotel, formerly known as the Mövenpick Voile d’Or Resort & Spa Mauritius, stands in the resort of Bel Ombre, in the southwestern part of the island of Mauritius. Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts began operating the 181-room property last October, and it will continue to do so.

Capella's Castle In Austria Return to Headlines
Schloss Velden in the town of Velden, in southern Austria, put its drawbridge up and relaxed in 1989 after almost a century of welcoming hotel guests. But the castle, currently the home of a German industrialist, has clearly missed the royalty and Hollywood starlets that used to throng its passages. Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank must have sensed its property’s yearning to be a luxury hotel once again and has set out to satisfy the castle's craving by calling upon Capella Hotels & Resorts, which will open 109 suites to guests in summer 2007. Capella Hotels, which was launched in October 2005 by Horst Schulze, the CEO of West Paces Hotel Group, has a date the same year in neighbouring Germany: the company is to manage the restored Breidenbacher Hof in the city of Düsseldorf.

Robinson Club and Iberotel Set For The Palm Return to Headlines
The Palm, Jumeirah development off the coast of Dubai now knows the identity of the latest two hotels to adorn its crescent. They are properties of the Robinson Club and Iberotel brands, each with 300 rooms and each ready for habitation from June 2008 onwards. The properties will result from a collaboration between TUI Hotels and Resorts and Zabeel Investments in a project valued at a reported US$190 million.

Protea Hotels Namibia Formed Return to Headlines
South African chain Protea Hotels and United African Hospitality Group (UAHG) have formed a joint venture (weighted 51:49 in UAHG’s favour) called Protea Hotels Namibia. One aim of this new entity is the addition of properties in the southern African country of Namibia to an initial portfolio of six hotels (227 rooms) – two supplied by Protea and four by UAHG. One of the first properties to join will be the luxury Eliakim Namundjebo Plaza complex in the capital Windhoek. Another aim is the extension of Protea Hotels Namibia’s acquisitive reach into neighbouring Angola and distant Ethiopia.

IHG Scales The Heights Then Heads Downtown Return to Headlines
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has opened property number 12 in Egypt: the 503-room InterContinental Resort Taba Heights, which is part of the Taba Heights development on the Gulf of Aqaba. The IHG experience in Kuwait now extends to a third hotel. The 169-room Holiday Inn Kuwait-Downtown is the second hotel in the capital Kuwait City with the Holiday Inn name.

The Merchant's Tale About To Unfold In Belfast Return to Headlines
The city of Belfast in Northern Ireland is about to witness the results of a £9 million renovation of the former headquarters of Ulster Bank. Beannchor has turned the building into the luxury Merchant Hotel, which will begin life with 21 rooms and take another 60 in a second round of work. Meanwhile, a luxury country house hotel in England has swapped one set of private owners for another. The 58-room Chewton Glen, in New Milton, in Hampshire, changed hands for an undisclosed sum.

Golden Tulip In Control Of Operations In Winterswijk Return to Headlines
Motorists seeking the Golden Tulip De Frerikshof in the Dutch border town of Winterswijk will for once be unable to blame their inability to find the hotel on their partner’s map-reading skills. For the Frerikshof is the correct road; it’s just that the 66-room property has changed its name to the Golden Tulip Winterswijk. The signwriters were summoned after Roel Hilbink sold the hotel to the Westermeijer Group, with Golden Tulip Hospitality (GTH) taking the lease. The Golden Tulip Winterswijk is the ninth hotel in the Netherlands to come under GTH’s operational control.

Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 30/03/06-06/04/06




Kingdom Hotel Investments - Morgan Stanley began its coverage with an 'Overweight' rating and a target price of US$12. The broker considers that Kingdom is in an excellent position to strengthen its standing as a leading hotel owner in emerging markets.

InterContinental Hotels Group - The share price was given an early lift by ABN Amro's quoting a 12-month target price of 1,030p. ABN Amro expects the hotelier to return £675 million to shareholders next year.

Whitbread - Morgan Stanley lowered its rating from 'Equal-weight' to 'Underweight'.