| Hilton Establishes Its First Hotel In Russia |
| Another of those hotels in Moscow dating from the era of Stalin is being updated. The Leningradskaya Hotel is spared the fate of demolition; instead, it is to be extensively renovated. Choosing the new wallpaper is Hilton Hotels Corporation, which has signed a franchise agreement with JSC Sadko Hotel on what will become the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya. When it reopens in mid 2007, the 275-room hotel, Hilton’s first in Russia, will be operated by Interstate Management Services, a subsidiary of Interstate Hotels & Resorts. |
| Le Meridien To Have A Third Hotel In Russia | Return to Headlines |
| Le Meridien, perhaps keen on a change from Moscow, has settled on the city of St Petersburg as the location for its third hotel in Russia. The North Crown Hotel in the Petrogradskaya district of the city will reopen in 2008 as the 322-room Le Meridien St Petersburg. The money for the transformation is provided by a subsidiary of the Russian bank Evrofinance Mosnarbank. | |
| Kazakhstan's Second Renaissance; European Courtyard Prototype Born | Return to Headlines |
| Kazakhstan has welcomed its second Renaissance hotel. The Renaissance Atyrau Hotel has 202 rooms and stands in the town of Atyrau, on the northern shores of the Caspian Sea. The property was developed by CP Hotels Atyrau, a subsidiary of the real estate firm Capital Partners. Marriott International has also bid official welcome to the Courtyard by Marriott Colombes in the French capital Paris. Study the 150-room property well, for it is the prototype of some 50 Courtyard by Marriott hotels that Marriott International wants to open in Europe over the next five years. | |
| Great Southern Hotel In Killarney To Change Hands Again | Return to Headlines |
| The Irish Times reports that Edward Holdings is to sell the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney, barely a month after buying it from Dublin Airport Authority. The 172-room hotel is swapping one pair of hands for four pairs; Risteard O’Lionaird and Mike O’Shea (both of Sunday’s Well Properties) and Janet and Padraig Treacy (who operate two hotels in Killarney) will pay a total of a reported €40 million. Elsewhere in the Republic of Ireland, Hotel Partners has made the short journey from its home in Dublin to manage the 155-room, four-star Park Plaza Tyrrelstown, which has opened to become the first hotel in the country with the Park Plaza brand. | |
| Hoteles Catalonia Prepares A Sixth Hotel In Madrid | Return to Headlines |
| Hoteles Catalonia has five hotels in Madrid and is ready for a sixth, according to reports in the Spanish press. The company paid the real estate firms Ibusa and Pedralbes a reported €18 million for a nineteenth-century residential building in the centre of the Spanish capital that it will convert into a 96-room, four-star hotel. | |
| Alma Poised To Buy Schlosshotel im Grunewald | Return to Headlines |
| By the end of the year Alma expects to have completed the purchase of Schlosshotel im Grunewald, a luxury 54-room hotel on the western outskirts of Berlin. The Spanish investment group will pay Dr Herbert Ebertz, the principal shareholder in Dorint Hotels, close to a reported €23 million for the hotel, which Alma will operate in succession to Dorint Hotels. | |
| Beetham Committed To A Tower In London | Return to Headlines |
| Window cleaners across London will be wringing out their chamois to celebrate the news that Beetham Organization has applied for permission to build a 51-storey glass tower off Blackfriars Road, on the South Bank. A hotel created by Jumeirah, the hospitality group from Dubai, will occupy the lower floors of the £600 million Beetham Tower, with the remaining floors of the 180-metre building given over to residential apartments. The luxury 261-room hotel, which is set to open in 2011, would be Jumeirah’s third hotel in London. | |
| Kempinski Prepares To Enter Bahrain | Return to Headlines |
| Two hotels will grace the Bahrain City Centre development in Manama: one a four-star, the other a five-star. It is in the latter hotel that Kempinski Hotels is interested. The company has signed an agreement with MAF Hospitality, part of the Majid Al Futtaim Group, on the 196-room hotel, which is a first in Bahrain for Kempinski. The hotel will open in 2008. | |
| Kingdom Reports Its Interims; Acquires The InterContinental Lusaka | Return to Headlines |
| Kingdom Hotel Investments (KHI) recorded EBITDA of US$11.7 million for the six months to 30 June 2006, an increase of 8.3% on the previous year’s comparable figure. Revenue for the period was up 71.5%, at US$42.7 million. The hotels in KHI’s portfolio saw like-for-like RevPAR rise by 9.0% to finish on US$141. The portfolio will welcome to its ranks the InterContinental Lusaka, which stands in the capital of Zambia. KHI has paid US$28 million for a 100% stake in Marasa Holdings, the owner of the 402-room hotel, and will spend around US$12 million on refurbishment work. | |
| Ramada Encore To Be Exhibited In Birmingham | Return to Headlines |
| The NEC Group will be leaving its headquarters in NEC House in the second half of next year. The group will leave a little piece of itself behind, as it has put in place plans to redevelop the building as a Ramada Encore hotel. The developer Alfred McAlpine, which will work on the project in partnership with New World Leisure, is set to pay around a reported £9 million for the building and it will be spending a reported £11 million on producing the 164-room hotel, which is set to open in summer 2008. Those employees leaving NEC House should have a good view of the proceedings from their new office in the National Exhibition Centre, in Birmingham. | |
| OBOS Takes A Stake In Norgani Hotels | Return to Headlines |
| OBOS Forretningsbygg, a property developer from Norway, has become the second-biggest shareholder in its compatriot Norgani Hotels. OBOS paid 237.4 million Norwegian kroner (around €28 million) for a stake of 10.11%, a move which places it behind Deutsche Bank (which has a stake of 11.5%) in the shareholders’ league table. Norgani Hotels has a portfolio of 79 hotels (13,406 rooms) distributed across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. | |
| Say Hello, Wave Goodbye | Return to Headlines |
| Rezidor SAS Hospitality has a new senior vice president and chief operating officer, and his name is Thorsten Kirschke. Kirschke, who has been with the company for 12 years, will continue to serve as Area Vice President Germany. In a year from now InterContinental Hotels Group will be saying farewell to Richard Hartman, who is to retire from his post as president of the EMEA region. | |
| The International Hotel Conference Draws Near | Return to Headlines |
| So that’s laptop…fire-extinguisher…casual clothing…the packing ritual soon to be followed by around 90 distinguished speakers from all walks of the hotel industry as they prepare for the International Hotel Conference. The Rome Cavalieri Hilton is hosting the three-day event, which begins on 11 October. HVS International will be represented by Steve Rushmore, Russell Kett and Dominique Bourdais. Rudy Reudelhuber is representing HVS HWE. For further details of the conference visit www.internationalhotelconference.com click here. | |
| October: Month Of The Hotelforum 2006 | Return to Headlines |
| Hotelforum 2006 is a conference for hotel and real estate professionals. Rub shoulders with them at the Kempinski Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, in Munich, on 25 and 26 October. HVS International is one of the premium sponsors of the event and Dominique Bourdais, a director at HVS’s London office, will be moderating a panel entitled “Go east! New hotel markets to watch”. Further details of the event may be found at www.hotelforum.org click here. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 21/09/06-28/09/06
Kingdom Hotel Investments - The share price responded to Kingdom's strong interim figures.
Accor - Accor's share price was among the risers on a French market buoyed by a fall in oil prices.
Whitbread - Morgan Stanley kept its 'Equal-weight' rating and raised its target price from 1,100p to 1,400p.
