| Sale Of 47 UK Marriotts Is Completed |
| A consortium led by Quinlan Private, a private equity real estate group, has completed its purchase of 47 hotels (around 8,500 rooms) in the UK that wear the Marriott brand. The consortium, which included the real estate investor Igal Ahouvi Group – which acted on behalf of clients such as Delek Real Estate and First International Bank of Israel – paid Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) around £1.1 billion for the hotels, which are managed by Marriott International under a 30-year contract. RBS acquired the properties last year from Condor, a joint venture set up by Whitbread and Marriott International. |
| Interstate Manages A Brace of Holiday Inns In Moscow | Return to Headlines |
| Interstate Hotels & Resorts, an independent hotel management company from the USA, has added properties six and seven to its portfolio of hotels in the Russian capital Moscow. The 312-room Holiday Inn Moscow-Suschevsky and the 301-room Holiday Inn Moscow-Lesnaya are both owned by local construction firm Mospromstroi. Interstate now has nine hotels in Europe under its management, the most recent of these hotels to have opened being the Ashbourne Marriott Hotel in the Republic of Ireland. | |
| Tiara Hotels & Resorts Ready To Perch On The Palm | Return to Headlines |
| Zabeel Investments, of the United Arab Emirates, has launched a hotel management firm named Tiara Hotels & Resorts. The first luxury hotel that Tiara will get to operate is one that has been under construction since last year at The Palm, Jumeirah development. The Tiara Residence is a collection of seven 15-storey towers being built at a cost of some US$570 million. The Tiara Residence’s “six-star” resort component, which will feature a 244-room hotel and 132 serviced apartments, was originally earmarked for operation by the Thai firm Anantara, but will instead be handed to Tiara Hotels & Resorts. The property is due to open in summer 2008. | |
| Jumeirah To Manage Its First Hotel In Abu Dhabi | Return to Headlines |
| HH Sheikh Al Nahyan and his Department of Special Projects has three hotel developments under way in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. One of them is on the beachfront in the Khalideya district, an area to which the sheikh has enticed Jumeirah Group. The luxury Jumeirah Etihad Towers will offer 400 guest rooms and 200 serviced apartments within its 60 storeys. The property, Jumeirah Group's first in Abu Dhabi, is scheduled to open in late 2010. | |
| Sun Brings Forth Tulips And Banyan Trees | Return to Headlines |
| Golden Tulip Hospitality’s fifth hotel in Oman is the Golden Tulip Resort Dibba. The property in the coastal town of Dibba has 54 rooms. From a company that has 31 hotels in the MEA region we turn to Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, which is celebrating the arrival of its first hotel in the Middle East. The sands in southwestern Bahrain have been shifted to make way for the Al Areen development and on it the 78 villas of the luxury Banyan Tree Desert Spa and Resort, Al Areen. | |
| Centro Of Attraction At Sharjah Airport | Return to Headlines |
| If you are on board an Air Arabia flight in the years ahead you will have to forgive the pilots if your budget aircraft does a couple of laps of Sharjah airport before takeoff. They will be showing off the 300-room, three-star Centro by Rotana, Sharjah Airport, which Rotana Hotels has agreed to manage. Rotana Hotels launched the Centro brand in 2005 (only two years after Air Arabia itself was born) with the aim of opening 25 hotels with the brand over a five-year period. | |
| MGM Mirage And Mubadala To Build Non-Gaming Hotels | Return to Headlines |
| MGM Mirage, the hotel and gaming company, wants to build more hotels around the world. No craps. Yes sir, no craps, no baccarat, not even the familiar rattle of the roulette wheel. For this latest crop of luxury hotels that MGM wants to develop will be devoid of gaming facilities. The company has formed a joint venture with Mubadala Development Company, an investment vehicle owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, that will begin its work in each of the partners' respective homes: Las Vegas and the emirate of Abu Dhabi. | |
| Lloyd Banks On Dorfhotel Sylt | Return to Headlines |
| Lloyd Fonds, which is one of the leading arrangers of closed-end funds in Germany, has paid the German firm GBI €24.4 million for the Dorfhotel Sylt. The four-star hotel, which has 159 rooms, is due to open this June on the German island of Sylt, which lies in the North Sea. TUI is to operate the property under a 20-year agreement. | |
| Hotel du Vin Given Go-Ahead In Edinburgh | Return to Headlines |
| Hotel du Vin, the group that operates boutique hotels in England, has been busy in Scotland of late. It has already acquired One Devonshire Gardens in Glasgow, is said to be close to a deal in the eastern city of St Andrews and is reportedly awaiting planning permission in Aberdeen. The group’s wait for planning approval in the capital Edinburgh is though over, thus freeing Hotel du Vin to press ahead with its plans to convert a former blood transfusion centre into a 47-room hotel. The group paid a reported £2.4 million for the building last summer and will spend a reported £8 million on ensuring the hotel is open in another summer: next year’s. | |
| Intourist Leans Towards Pisa | Return to Headlines |
| The Russian firm Intourist is reported to have paid around €10 million for the Prince Hotel, a four-star property with 24 rooms that stands in the coastal town of Forte dei Marmi, to the north of the Italian city of Pisa. Reports indicate that the company will spend €10 million on transforming the property into a boutique hotel which will open in July 2008. Back in the motherland, Maxima Hotels has opted for youth in choosing its third hotel in Moscow. The 100-room, three-star Slavia Hotel, now the Maxima Slavia, is 20 years younger than its stablemates – the Maxima Zarya and the Maxima Irbis – both of which were built in 1956. The management company, which now has 396 rooms under its control, has plans to develop a chain of hotels in the Russian capital. | |
| First-Quarter Light Shines On Accor | Return to Headlines |
| Accor saw its revenue for the first three months of 2007 rise by a like-for-like 7.6% to finish on approximately €1.9 billion. The company’s hotels contributed roughly €1.3 billion to this total, an increase (like for like) on the previous year’s comparable of 7.2%. RevPAR across the hotel divisions was buoyant, thanks to an increase across the board in both occupancy and average rate. European upscale and midscale hotels returned RevPAR of €61 (an increase of 11.6%) and the European economy hotels saw RevPAR rise by 8.2% to €36. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 12/04/07-19/04/07
Accor - The company's first-quarter figures led Jefferies International to reiterate its 'Buy' rating and its target price of €83.
Whitbread - The share price eased despite rumours that the company is close to selling its David Lloyd Leisure chain.
InterContinental Hotels Group - The share price slipped after Marriott International lowered its outlook for full-year room revenue.
