| InterContinental Hotels Group Sells 24 Hotels |
| InterContinental Hotels Group expects to have completed the sale of yet another batch of hotels by the second quarter of this year. Westbridge Hospitality Fund, which is managed by Westmont Hospitality, is in line to receive 24 hotels for an outlay of €352 million. The hotels, which are being sold with 15-year franchise contracts, have a total of 4,903 rooms and fly a Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn or Express by Holiday Inn flag. Half of the hotels to be sold are in Germany; the remainder are shared among Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, France and Austria. |
| Missoni Statement From Rezidor SAS | Return to Headlines |
| In November last year Rezidor SAS Hospitality and Italian fashion house Missoni signed an agreement to develop lifestyle hotels under the Hotel Missoni brand. The pair want to have 30 such properties either open or under development by 2010. Studio Thun, one of Rezidor’s favoured designers, will perhaps have been calling for swatches of tartan and deciding which wallpapers are least likely to clash with ultraviolet after Rezidor revealed the first three locations. The Scottish capital Edinburgh will site its hotel, which will have 130 rooms opening in late 2008, on the Royal Mile. Kuwait has decreed that its example, one with more than 200 rooms, will open in mid 2007 at the Symphony Complex in the capital. The emirate of Dubai has decided that its hotel, which will have more than 250 rooms, will be seen to its best advantage on the crescent of The Palm, Jumeirah from late 2008 onwards. HVS Hodges Ward Elliott acted for the developer of the Hotel Missoni Edinburgh. | |
| Cendant's Hospitality Branch Will Be Known As Wyndham Worldwide | Return to Headlines |
| Cendant Corporation announced last October that it expected to split into its four component parts – real estate, travel distribution, hospitality and vehicle rental – in summer 2006. Those who have spent the winter wondering what the new name for the hospitality component might be (given the knowledge that the Cendant name was to be retired) may now see if their guess was correct. The new name is Wyndham Worldwide, which, when the split happens, will be an independent company taking care of a stable of brands that includes Wyndham, Ramada and Days Inn. | |
| Holiday Club Finland Heads For St Petersburg | Return to Headlines |
| Holiday Club Finland is to introduce its spa hotel concept (that is, a spa hotel and time-share apartments) to Russia next year. The city of St Petersburg will be the venue for the opening of the 285-room Holiday Club City Spa, which Holiday Club Finland is developing in cooperation with its compatriot Dividum and the Russian builder LenSpecSMU. | |
| Moscow Will Wear The Crowne Plaza | Return to Headlines |
| The Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel occupies one of the buildings that form the World Trade Centre Moscow. Travellers who have never mastered Russian pronunciation may be relieved to hear that the hotel will be changing its name to the Crowne Plaza Moscow – World Trade Centre in early 2007. The 26-year-old hotel will undergo an extensive renovation to fit it for its new life as the first Crowne Plaza property in Russia. The 572 rooms supplied by InterContinental Hotels Group's latest hotel in Moscow bring the company's room count in the Russian capital to 1,339. | |
| Mövenpick Adopts A 2-2-1 Formation In Saudi Arabia | Return to Headlines |
| Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts has two hotels in Medina and two in Jedda, and is now halfway towards replicating this symmetry in Mecca. The company’s exploits in Saudi Arabia continued when Mövenpick signed a contract to manage the five-star Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Hajar Tower Makkah, which is owned by Kuwaiti firm Hajar Real Estate Company. The 410-room hotel, which is due to open in late 2007, forms part of the Abraj Al-Bait complex. This complex includes 882 furnished residences, which Mövenpick will manage in a rental pool. Students of the hotel game will of course be aware that this latest hotel will allow Mövenpick to adopt a 2-2-2 formation in 2007, for the company has under development the 153-room Mövenpick Hotel Al Khobar. | |
| Domina Twice In Egypt | Return to Headlines |
| Domina Hotel Group of Italy will be able to offer its guests in Sharm el-Sheikh the promise of a stroll from casino to harem this May. But before guests’ temperatures rise to match those of the Egyptian resort it should be noted that it is a harem in name only – in the name Domina Harem Hotel & Resort. The 260-room property is the seventh hotel at the Domina Coral Bay Hotel, Resort & Casino development. It might be said that Domina Hotel Group is assembling a harem of resorts in Egypt. Number three joined this week: the 540-room Domina Makadi Bay Hotel & Resort, near Hurghada. | |
| Golden Tulip Spreads In Germany | Return to Headlines |
| Golden Tulip Hospitality (GTH) will be taking over the lease on four hotels in Germany on 1 April. GTH is relieving the hotels’ previous manager: its long-standing partner RIMC. Two of the hotels – the 113-room Lübecker Hof, in Lübeck, and a 48-room hotel in Wolfenbüttel – already fly the Golden Tulip flag; and so will the third hotel, the 170-room Golden Tulip Hamburg Aviation, when it opens this autumn. The fourth hotel is currently operating as a Quality hotel but it will be rebranded as the Tulip Inn Munich Airport (67 rooms) by the middle of this year. | |
| Maritim Adventures Aboard HMS International | Return to Headlines |
| Maritim Hotels of Germany is set to open its first hotel on the Spanish mainland in summer 2008. (The company already has a hotel on the island of Tenerife.) Maritim has signed a franchise agreement with its associated partner HMS International Hotel, which is to manage the 151-room, de luxe four-star Maritim Beach Resort & Suites in Estepona, on the Costa del Sol. When Spanish chain Hotusa Hoteles travels abroad, it occasionally takes the Eurostars. The brand has made the trip to Italy three times; its fourth outing has taken it to Rome, which has welcomed the 238-room, four-star Eurostars Roma Congress. | |
| Operation Pandox Becomes Operation Jonasson | Return to Headlines |
| The Mora Hotell & Spa in the town of Mora was one of 12 hotels in Sweden that Swedish hotel property company Pandox sold last June to its Norwegian counterpart Norgani Hotels. The sale of the property meant that Pandox had no need to continue operating it; and so the company has sold the operation of the 141-room, four-star hotel to Mikael Jonasson, who is the hotel’s director. | |
| Read About Reading | Return to Headlines |
| A roar coming up from the Madejski Stadium in Reading on 25 March 2007 is more likely to be generated by followers of Millennium & Copthorne than fans of Reading Football Club. The sound will signify to residents of the town in Berkshire that work to add 60 guest rooms and meeting facilities to the 140-room Millennium Madejski Hotel has been completed on schedule. The ears of the townsfolk should by then have readjusted after their assailing this week by the noise of celebration ringing out from The George Hotel. The 76-room boutique hotel has a new owner: an anonymous private investor. Zola Hotels sold the property, which had an asking price of £6 million, for an undisclosed sum. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 09/03/06-16/03/06
Whitbread - The market was gripped by rumours that Mitchells & Butlers was preparing a bid for Whitbread's pub business.
InterContinental Hotels Group - Morgan Stanley raised its target price from 825p to 970p.
Millennium & Copthorne - Citigroup kept its 'Hold' rating on the stock but raised its target price from 400p to 450p.
