HVS EMEA Hospitality Newsletter - Week Ending 7 May 2010
Posted
Friday May 07, 2010
The latest hospitality news from Europe, the Middle East and Africa
The iconic Hotel Lutetia, in Paris, France, is celebrating its 100-year anniversary this year and it seems that the hotel will be surging into its second century under new ownership. After being in talks with Starwood Capital since December 2009, Israel-based Alrov Properties and Lodgings, a subsidiary of the Alrov Group, has signed an options agreement to buy the 231-room hotel for €145 million. It is reported that Alrov wants to retain the management of Concorde Hotel Group, a subsidiary of Starwood, for the property. This is Alrov’s third hotel in Europe; the group currently has two properties under construction in Amsterdam and London.
Park Plaza Hotels and its business partner Israel-based public limited liability company Elbit Imaging have purchased the Holiday Inn Amsterdam Schiphol from Melbourne Onroerende Zaken BV, a Netherlands-based unit of Aareal Bank, for €30 million. The 342-room hotel is to be rebranded as the Park Plaza Amsterdam Airport; the hotel has now become Park Plaza’s third property in Amsterdam, and it brings the company’s portfolio in the Netherlands up to 1,008 rooms.
…No, not a dragon of the scaly variety with fiery breath, but entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne of Dragon’s Den fame. Bannatyne’s company the UK-based Bannatyne Group has bought the freehold to the Grade II-listed 25-room Charlton House Hotel & Spa, in the town of Shepton Mallet, southwest England, from administrators BDO LLP for a reported £3 million. This is hotel number four for the group. Bannatyne has plans to extend the hotel, including additional spa facilities.
Rezidor Hotel Group was so impressed with the plans for the Rosa Khutor Alpine Ski Resort Development, which is currently under construction in the Krasnaya Polyana Valley, 50 km east of Sochi in southern Russia, that it decided to build not one but two properties there: the 180-room Radisson Resort Rosa Khutor and the 200-room Park Inn Resort Rosa Khutor, which are both expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2012. This week, Rezidor also announced the recent official opening of the Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow; formerly known as the Hotel Ukraina, the hotel has reopened after a three-year renovation with 506 rooms and 38 apartments.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts has announced plans to open its first W-branded property in Abu Dhabi. Starwood has signed an agreement with UAE-based privately owned conglomerate Belbadi, which will see the W Abu Dhabi open as part of the mixed-use Al Bateen Wharf project in the emirate of Abu Dhabi in 2013. Once open, the 350-room hotel will be Starwood’s third W hotel in the Middle East; the W Doha Hotel & Residences, in Qatar, welcomed its first guests in 2009 and the W Amman, in Jordan, is expected to open in 2012.
Marriott announced this week that it has recently signed management contracts for two new hotels in Africa. The Renaissance Tlemcen is scheduled to open in January 2011 in the town of Tlemcen in northwestern Algeria; this 204-room hotel is owned by Algerian investment company Societe d’Investissement Hotelier and, once open, it will be the only Marriott hotel in Algeria. (It won’t have this honour for long though as the 227-room Algiers Marriott and the 180-unit Marriott Executive Apartments Algiers are both expected to be completed in 2012.) Hotel number two is the 237-room Kigali Marriott Hotel in the city of Kigali, Rwanda. This property is owned by Hong Kong-based New Century Development and is expected to open as Marriott’s first property in Rwanda in 2012.
Millennium & Copthorne has signed management contracts for three new properties in the Middle East. The cities of Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, and Amman, in Jordan, will both receive a Millennium hotel, and Doha, in Qatar, will become the home of a Millennium Executive Apartments; the Amman property will mark Millennium’s entry into Jordan. The hotels will add more than 800 rooms to Millennium’s portfolio in the region.
Hospitality Management Holdings (HMH) has opened its first Coral Hotels & Resorts property in Lebanon. The Coral Suites Al Hamra rolled out the red carpet for its first guests this week in the capital Beirut. The 100-room hotel is owned by Sheikh Faisal bin Sultan Al Qassimi. HMH’s Coral brand now has a presence in seven countries in the Middle East and Africa. HMH also announced this week that it has finalised contracts for five new properties in Saudi Arabia. The group will develop two Coral-branded hotels (the 153-room Coral Dhahran, which is already under construction, and the 60-room Coral Jeddah) and three Corp Executive properties (the Corp Executive Hotel – Riyadh, the Corp Al Attas Riyadh and the Corp Dabbab – Riyadh). In addition, HMH also has another ten hotels under negotiation in Saudi Arabia; most of the projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2010 or mid 2011.
After a tough year for the hospitality industry in 2009, it looks like the sun might be just starting to break through those credit crunch clouds. Millennium & Copthorne has reported a 64% increase in net profit, to £14.1 million, for the first quarter of 2010, and revenue for the same period increased by 2.2% to £160.5 million. The company’s overall RevPAR increased by 3.2%, driven by a 3.1% rise in occupancy. Millennium’s chairman Kwek Leng Beng said: “We have made a good start to the year with revenue and trading performances in line with management expectations.”
The news from Spain by Esther Gladen, Business and Market Intelligence Analyst, HVS Madrid. The doors of the four-star Hotel Riu La Mola, in Playa Migjorn on the Balearic Island of Formentera, opened again on 1 May after a €10 million refurbishment. The work included reducing the hotel’s room count to 324 from 328. AC Hoteles is to manage its first hotel In Morocco, built by Pétrole du Maghreb (Petrom). So far, AC Hoteles’ portfolio includes 79 properties in Spain, nine in Italy and two in Portugal. Summa Hoteles and Ágora Manage have decided to jointly manage the four-star, 45-room Juan de Austria hotel in Madrid. This could be the first step to more future projects between the two companies. The project started when Summa signed an agreement for a 50-year use of the land with the Archbishopric of Madrid some years ago. Some €20 million is to be invested in the construction of a new building, after the demolition of the old one, and Summa and Agora will share the risk and the profit resulting from this venture. Ibis has opened its 12th hotel in Catalunya: the 106-room Ibis Mataró in the province of Barcelona
Millennium & Copthorne - Shares fell despite the company posting an increase in sales and profit last week for the first quarter of the year.
InterContinental Hotels Group - Share prices dropped despite Natixis raising the share price target to £13.50 from £11.50.
Accor - Oddo Securities maintained its "accumulate" rating and gave Accor a share price target of €49.
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