| Choice Hotels And CHE Hotel Group Terminate Master Franchise Agreement |
| Choice Hotels International (CHI) ended October by terminating the master franchise agreement between it and CHE Hotel Group that covered Germany, Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic and parts of Switzerland. The two parties struck a sale and purchase agreement to transfer the franchising operations in these countries to CHI, with CHE Hotel Group continuing to operate eight hotels in Germany as a franchisee of CHI. By the end of November, CHI expects to have terminated the master franchise agreement covering Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and parts of Switzerland. Again, the franchising business in these countries will pass to CHI. CHE Hotel Group will continue to operate a total of eight hotels in France and Belgium as a franchisee of CHI. |
| Mercure Rises By One Degree In England | Return to Headlines |
| Fuller, Smith & Turner, the brewer and retailer, announced last month that it had sold The Brigstow Hotel to the Pedersen Group for £17.09 million. The 115-room, four-star property, which stands in the city of Bristol, in southwest England, has become Accor’s second Mercure hotel in the UK. The Mercure Brigstow Bristol, on which Accor has signed a long-term lease agreement, is a companion for the 144-room, three-star Mercure London City Bankside. One man who will be especially interested in the news is Andrew Shaw, who is Accor’s new development director in the UK and Ireland. | |
| Palaces Hotel & Resort Is The Latest To Join Bawadi | Return to Headlines |
| The plans drawn up by Tatweer call for a total of 31 themed hotels (29,200 rooms) to be built on its Bawadi development by 2014. The identity of each property is revealed as one by one developers step forward to become part of the US$27 billion project in the emirate of Dubai. The latest hotel to find a name is the Palaces Hotel & Resort, which will be built by Galadari Investments for a cost of a reported US$326.8 million. The 1,000-room hotel, which will take as its inspiration some of the world’s finest palaces, will line up alongside the other developments thus far confirmed: the 6,500-room Asia-Asia (the world’s largest hotel), the America Hotel & Resort and the Pirates Cove Hotel & Resort. | |
| Helnan Reveals Renovation Plans For Grand Hotel Sauerhof | Return to Headlines |
| Helnan International Hotels, of Denmark, was in Austria in September to secure the purchase of the Grand Hotel Sauerhof, which stands in the eastern town of Baden. The company has now revealed its plans for the renovation of the 88-room property, which is Helnan’s first hotel in Austria. When the work is complete the hotel will have a total of 160 guest rooms, more meeting space and an underground car park. | |
| A Couple Of Big Deals In England | Return to Headlines |
| Swire Properties is reported to have paid Luxury Hotel Management £20.5 million for the Hotel Barcelona, a 46-room property in the city of Exeter, in southwest England, that is part of the chain Alias Hotels. Another deal in England has seen Queens Moat Houses sell the Oakley Court Hotel for more than the asking price of a reported £50 million. The buyers of the 118-room hotel, which stands in the town of Windsor, in Berkshire, are two unnamed private investors. | |
| Merweb Hotel City Centre Heads For Doha | Return to Headlines |
| Qatar National Hotels Company has signed what is its second management agreement with Al Faisal Holding. The agreement covers the Merweb Hotel City Centre, which is due to open in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in the first quarter of 2008. The 250-room hotel, which will also offer 97 serviced apartments, will be a companion for the 126-room Al Sadd Merweb Hotel. | |
| Taplow House Flies Wren's Nest | Return to Headlines |
| Wren’s Hotel Group has sold one of the three hotels that it has in England. An unnamed private investor from Singapore has added the Taplow House Hotel to his own collection of UK hotels by paying in excess of the asking price of £6.5 million for the 33-room property, which stands in the county of Buckinghamshire. The hotel is likely to be refurbished. Refurbishment is the word too at the St James’s Club in London. Work is about to begin on a nine-month programme costing a reported £5 million that is designed to transform the former members club, which Leverguide purchased in 2005, into a luxury 61-room hotel. Folio Hotels was appointed at the time of the purchase to be the manager of the hotel, which is set to open in August next year. | |
| Dissolving Coral | Return to Headlines |
| The Coral by Hilton brand was born in 2002 and has had its life ended just short of its fourth birthday. Hilton Hotels Corporation and Coral Hotels & Resorts agreed to terminate their agreement to develop a brand that was designed to mark Hilton’s entry into the all-inclusive resort market. The four properties in Coral Hotels’ portfolio in the Dominican Republic that took the Coral by Hilton brand will revert to the Coral Hotels & Resorts brand. | |
| A New Face And A New Hotel For Hilton | Return to Headlines |
| Perhaps you have a directory of hotel people in the UK and Ireland. If so, why not save on the cost of buying the 2007 edition by making amendments to the copy you have. Simply remember that in early January you should turn to the page devoted to Hilton Hotels Corporation, cross out the name of the company’s area president Howard Friedman (he is returning to the USA) and write in the name of his successor Simon Vincent, the chief executive of Opodo, the online travel services provider. Keep your ballpoint to hand if you have a gazetteer of Hilton hotels in Italy, for you will need to add the Hilton Garden Inn Florence Novoli. The 121-room hotel, which is owned by Mita Hotels and managed by Millenaria, is the second Hilton Garden Inn property in Europe; the first was the Hilton Garden Inn Stuttgart NeckarPark, which opened in Germany in September. | |
| Ballroom Blitz At Thistle Glasgow Preludes A Casino | Return to Headlines |
| Smaller balls, but the compensation for the Thistle Glasgow is that it will be the first hotel in Scotland to have a casino. The ballroom, the largest of the hotel’s 18 meeting rooms, will have its capacity trimmed from 1,500 to 600 guests in order to accommodate the casino, which could be open inside 12 months for a cost of a reported £7 million. BIL Gaming Operations UK, a subsidiary of BIL International, the owner of Thistle Hotels, had its bid to become a licensed operator of casinos approved in February. | |
| Millennium & Copthorne Reveals Its Third-Quarter Figures | Return to Headlines |
| Millennium & Copthorne (M&C) has announced its results for the third quarter of 2006. In the three months to 30 September the company made a pre-tax profit of £33.3 million, an increase of 66.5% on the previous year’s comparable, and recorded revenue of £156.1 million, an increase of 6.5%. RevPAR across M&C’s portfolio of 105 hotels rose by 6.5%. In London, RevPAR was £81.09 for the quarter, an increase of 20.9%, and in the remainder of the UK RevPAR rose by 1.7% to finish on £55.23. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 26/10/06-02/11/06
Whitbread - Deutsche Bank raised its target price from 1,505p to 1,545p on the strength of two of the company's businesses and recovery in the other two.
Sol Meliá - Merrill Lynch lowered its rating from 'Buy' to 'Neutral' on valuation grounds.
Millennium & Copthorne - Citigroup gave a 'Hold' rating and raised its target price from 450p to 510p.
