| Hilton Garden Inn Invites You To Surf At Frankfurt Airport |
| The Hilton Garden Inn brand, with its famed offer of complimentary high-speed Internet access in all guest rooms, is coming to Germany. At least certain flight-arrival websites will have a bit of a rest: guests will perhaps need merely to look out of their window to spot their plane. The brand will land at Frankfurt international airport – estimated arrival time: spring 2009 – in the shape of a 314-room property that will have for company a 247-room Hilton hotel, which is due to open at the same time. The properties are part of a mixed-use complex that the consortium Airrail is developing at the airport’s high-speed railway terminus. |
| Six Park Inns Captured In Danish Raid On England | Return to Headlines |
| EjendomsInvest, a property investment company from Denmark, has crossed the North Sea for the purposes of acquiring six Park Inn properties in England for a reported £95 million (a yield of 5.35%). The only one of the hotels theoretically visible from the water is the one in Grays, near the Thames Estuary in Essex. The other five are well inland: one not so very far away from Grays, in Harlow, in Essex; and one in each of Bedford, Nottingham, Telford and West Bromwich. The hotels, which have a total of 829 rooms, are two-thirds of a portfolio that Jefferson Hotels and Galliard Homes acquired from Queens Moat Houses last autumn. All nine hotels subsequently took the Park Inn brand. | |
| IHG In France For Express Purposes | Return to Headlines |
| Disappointed with the French football XI? Why not follow a French hotel XI instead. Developing under the watchful eye of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), with the assistance of Cofis Compagnie Fiduciaire from Geneva, these 11 fresh players, which have a total of 1,100 rooms between them, are all drawn from the Express by Holiday Inn club. It will take five years before the exact formation is known, but at this early stage key cities across France may be taken as being reliable markers. The venue for the first fixture is the northwestern port of St-Nazaire, where in December 2007 a 76-room Express by Holiday Inn will be showing fans how well it can occupy space. | |
| SAS Group Prepares An IPO Of Rezidor SAS | Return to Headlines |
| Within the next year you might see Rezidor SAS Hospitality floating on the Stockholm stock exchange. SAS Group, as part of the process of its withdrawal from the hotel sector, is preparing an initial public offering (IPO). That process might be seen as having begun early last year when Carlson Hotels Worldwide took from SAS Group a 25% stake in Rezidor. Carlson has indicated that it would want to remain a significant shareholder. | |
| Rezidor SAS Signs Up Six In A Week | Return to Headlines |
| Rezidor SAS Hospitality recently visited five countries in seven days to sign up six new hotels. The first of this particular set of six to open will be the 150-room Park Inn Sawley Marina, East Midlands, which is set to become the twelfth Park Inn in England when it opens in autumn 2007. Wales will be singing the praises of a 200-room Radisson SAS hotel, which will be opening in Cardiff in October 2008. By that time Northern Ireland will have had a first five months of pleasure from the 145-room Park Inn Belfast. Senegal, in West Africa, is uncharted territory for Rezidor, but the company will find its way to the capital in spring 2008 to open the 180-room Radisson SAS Hotel, Dakar. Rezidor has been to Croatia before but never with the Radisson SAS brand, a state of affairs that will be remedied in March 2008 with the arrival of the 203-room Radisson SAS Resort and Spa, Dubrovnik. That same month Dubrovnik will also be welcoming a Regent hotel of 120 rooms. | |
| Park Inn Posted To Stockholm | Return to Headlines |
| At the start of this year three private equity firms – two of them native to Sweden, the third from the USA – met in the Swedish capital Stockholm. The purpose of this assembly? To conclude the purchase from the city authorities of the Klara Postal Terminal building for 430 million Swedish kronor (around €46 million). The threesome of Niam Fond III, Jarl Asset Management and Cargill Value Investment intend to redevelop the site, at a cost of a reported €215 million, and have a hotel of some 420 rooms, a conference centre and offices in place by 2010. This week it was reported that Rezidor SAS Hospitality had been signed up to manage the hotel and conference centre under the Park Inn brand. | |
| Double The W In The Middle East | Return to Headlines |
| Qatar is the country chosen to take the second example of a W hotel in the Middle East. Starwood Hotels & Resorts expects to have the W Doha Hotel & Residences open in the Qatari capital Doha towards the end of next year. The property that Starwood will be managing on behalf of J&A Jaidah will have 292 guest rooms and 154 residences. The first W hotel in the Middle East to be announced was the W Dubai Festival City. | |
| IFA South Africa To Take A Stake In Boschendal | Return to Headlines |
| The South African branch of IFA Hotels & Resorts is to make what will be its first acquisition since it listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange in February. The company is to take what it terms ‘a significant stake’ in Boschendal Ltd, a move which will allow IFA South Africa to assist in the development of the Boschendal Estate in Cape Town. Among the plans proposed for the 2,400-hectare estate is the construction of a boutique hotel of more than 120 rooms. | |
| Wafi Group Opens The Arabian Park Hotel | Return to Headlines |
| Wafi Group is the owner and manager of a hotel that had its official opening this month. The Arabian Park Hotel in Dubai, the home emirate of Wafi Group, was originally conceived as a short-term letting residence but is now a fully fledged mid-market business and leisure hotel of 318 rooms. | |
| Domina Does Rome And Roams | Return to Headlines |
| Romans should lend their ears to their countryman Domina Hotel Group, which has news of what will be its second hotel in the Italian capital Rome. Domina has signed a lease agreement with Di Veroli Group that will pave the way for the opening on 1 December of the 252-room Domina Rome Hotel & Conferences. And this was not the only piece of news Domina had to offer. The company will be entering Jordan at the end of 2007 to open the 175-room Domina Inn Aqaba, in the port of Aqaba. | |
| Canyon Spotted In The French Alps | Return to Headlines |
| The Canyon Group of Companies has been busy since its formation last year piecing together a portfolio of luxury resorts. The Californian group’s latest acquisition, which it conducted with the financial backing of Bear Stearns, is Le Mélézin. This ski resort in Courchevel 1850, in the French Alps, has a 31-room hotel that is operated and will continue to be operated by Amanresorts. | |
| Hotel Riva Opens On Hvar | Return to Headlines |
| The ninth hotel in the portfolio operated by Sunčani Hvar is also the first Croatian member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World collection. The former Slavija Hotel on the Adriatic island of Hvar, on which all of Sunčani Hvar’s hotels are to be found, has been renovated and reopened as the 56-room Hotel Riva – Hvar Yacht Harbour. | |
| Whitbread Reports On Its First 13 Weeks | Return to Headlines |
| Alan Parker, the chief executive of Whitbread, said that the company had started its new financial year ‘robustly’. In the 13 weeks to 1 June 2006 Whitbread recorded total sales growth of 6.9%, and, just for once, Premier Travel Inn was not in top spot in the sales rankings. The hotels boasted total sales growth of 13.7%, but they were second to the high street restaurants and their growth of 14.1%. Perhaps out of respect for the 235 of its stand-alone brethren that are up for sale the pub restaurants business performed with modesty, recording total sales growth of 0.2%. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 15/06/06-22/06/06
Accor - The company predicted potential organic growth from its services business of 8-16% between 2006 and 2010.
Whitbread - Merrill Lynch kept its 'Buy' rating and its target price of 1,200p.
Millennium & Copthorne - The share price fell amid general market uncertainty. Citigroup has a 'Hold' stance on the stock and a target price of 450p.
