HVS EMEA Hospitality Enews - Week Ending 11 December 2009
Posted
Friday December 11, 2009
The latest hospitality news from Europe, the Middle East and Africa
St Brelade’s Bay Hotel, a family-run seafront property on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands, has been bought by a private investor. Jayne Best acquired the 82-room hotel from the Frost family for an undisclosed sum and now plans to invest in the hotel, creating new leisure facilities for the property. The hotel was on the market for a guide price of £12 million.
Luxembourg and Nigeria are not an obvious pairing, but they are united by Rezidor Hotel Group in the company’s latest plans for the Park Inn brand. The 99-room Park Inn Luxembourg City will be Rezidor’s first hotel of any description in the duchy and it will open in the final quarter of 2010. That is the time slated too for the opening of the 173-room Park Inn Abeokuta (the former Gateway Hotel), in the town of Abeokuta, in western Nigeria. For those hotels we must wait; and we must wait too – though for not quite so long – for the time when we may enjoy the 250-room Radisson Blu Hotel, Milan. The Chedi Milan is to be rebranded in the first quarter of 2010 and it will be only the second hotel in Italy with the Radisson Blu brand.
Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company announced this week that it is to develop two new hotels in Turkey: one in Istanbul, in the northwest, and one in the resort town of Bodrum, on the southern coast. No information is available yet on the room counts or opening dates of these properties; however, they will bring Ritz-Carlton’s portfolio in Turkey up to three. The hotel in Istanbul will be Ritz-Carlton’s second property in the city, alongside the Ritz-Carlton Istanbul, which opened in 2001.
Through a joint venture with Irish investment and development company Harte Holdings, independent US hotel management company Interstate Hotels & Resorts has announced that it is to manage three boutique properties in London, UK: the 39-room Cranley Hotel, the 48-room Royal Park Hotel and the 42-room Elizabeth Hotel. These are Interstate’s first properties in the UK.
Claudel Venture Holdings acquired Hersham Golf Club, in Surrey, in 2008 and now has plans to build a five-star hotel and spa there. But apart from the sunken courtyards, which could be trickier to get out of than Tiger Woods’ street, the property presents no other hazard to even the most wayward of golfers, for most of the development will be below ground. Claudel, which is a subsidiary of Cypriot leisure company Arkin Group Developments, could reportedly be spending up to £70 million on the 204-room hotel. Claudel expects to submit its plans in March next year.
At the beginning of 2008 InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced that it had signed an exclusive master franchise agreement with investment holding company Siraj Capital for the creation of 12 Holiday Inn Express properties across Saudi Arabia within five years. This week IHG announced the locations of the first three hotels that will come to fruition from this agreement. A 252-room hotel is to be developed in Jeddah; a 183-room hotel is to spring up in King Abdullah Economic City, near Jeddah, on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast; and a 140-room property will appear in Knowledge Economic City, in Medina. It is rumoured that the two companies will invest between US$50 million and US$60 million in developing the three hotels.
Thailand-based hospitality company Dusit International took a journey to Dubai, UAE, this week to open its first Dusit Princess property outside of Thailand: the 120-room Dusit Princess City Centre Dubai. This is Dusit International’s fourth property in Dubai and it plans to expand to other parts of the UAE with the opening of the Dusit Abu Dhabi in 2011.
Hotel management company Rotana has announced the opening of its latest property in Abu Dhabi, UAE: the Park Rotana – Abu Dhabi, which opened with 318 rooms as part of the mixed-use Park Rotana Complex. This is Rotana’s seventh hotel in Abu Dhabi and property number eight the Park Arjaan by Rotana Abu Dhabi, a 172-unit apartment hotel, is expected to open by the end of the year.
HVS Hodges Ward Elliott (HVS HWE) recently reviewed and analysed the prospects for hotel refinancing in the current environment following a survey conducted amongst the hotel teams of a number of leading European banks. However, there was no time for HVS HWE to just sit back and relax after all this hard work as an article needed to be prepared on the subject! Click here to read the article, which was written by HVS HWE’s very own Pascal Bichon.
The news from Spain by Esther Gladen, HVS Madrid. High Tech Hoteles has recently opened the 66-room Petit Palace Plaza in the centre of Málaga. Iberostar Hotels & Resorts opened its first hotel in Cape Verde this week: the four-star, 273-room Iberostar Club Boa Vista. Rezidor Hotel Group’s first Radisson Blu property in Madrid, the 54-room Radisson Blu Hotel, Madrid Prado, is to open by the end of the year. Sol Meliá has taken over the management of the La Quinta Golf Resort & Spa in Marbella. Accor rebranded the Sofitel Madrid Plaza to the Mercure Madrid Plaza, its second Mercure property in Spain.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts - Shares rose after the company completed a cash tender offer to purchase up to US$300 million aggregate principal amount of outstanding senior notes.
Accor - Accor continued a significant uptrend with a rises of 1.4% during the last week.
NH Hoteles - NH Hoteles traded at 3% below its volume weighted price.
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