Each week, Hotel News Now features a news roundup from a different region of the world. This week’s compilation covers Europe.
Travel experts hope for solutions to imbalance of overtourism throughout Europe
Parts of Europe are grappling with an overtourism crisis, but that’s not the case everywhere, with many markets only dreaming of having such good fortune.
Martin Brackenbury, director of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism Global, said one difficulty in countering overtourism is that local governments and travel companies are often at odds over solutions.
“Governments want to improve standards of living, and actors in tourism are concerned with building their businesses,” he said during a panel on overtourism at November’s World Travel Market.
Madrid’s Hotel Miguel Ángel sells for 2024 Spanish record of €210 million
Geneva-based investor Stoneweg Hospitality and joint-venture partner, Canary Islands-based owner-operator Lopesan Hotel Group, have acquired the 241-room Hotel Miguel Ángel in Madrid for €210 million ($223 million) or approximately €871,000 per key.
Mohari Hospitality acquires Venice’s iconic Bauer Hotel for reported €300 million
Mohari Hospitality and Omnam Investment Group acquired Venice’s 191-room Bauer Hotel, which is under renovation to reopen as the Rosewood Hotel Bauer next year. Mohari did not disclose a transaction price in a news release announcing the deal. However, Italian business website Milano Finanza reports the price tag is €300 million.
Franchising focus and promoting its legacy hotel brands: Wyndham’s priorities in Europe
The major global hotel brand companies are expanding franchising across Europe, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is poised to take advantage of the surge across the continent.
Dimitris Manikis, Wyndham's president of Europe, Middle East and Africa, said that even though 50% of Wyndham’s portfolio of hotels is within one of its legacy brand Ramada, the firm has new brands spreading across Europe and even entering new markets.
“I was so glad to see the Super 8 brand, how it is growing. It is growing in Germany, and Dolce, too. We opened five this year. … And we are launching Microtel in India,” he said on the latest episode of The Upgrade, Hotel News Now’s Europe, the Middle East and Africa podcast.
Oasis tour driving hotel bookings across European markets
Oasis’ 2025 reunion tour in the U.K. and Ireland is seeing a significant impact on hotel occupancy on the books, according to Forward STAR data from STR. As of Nov. 4, Cardiff showed the highest level in occupancy on the books, peaking at 73.6% on Fri., July 4, which is the highest 2025 booking level in the market thus far. The following night July 5 follows closely behind at 63.5%. When compared to the same time last year, booking levels were at 27.7% and 14.2%, respectively.
KKR, Baupost acquire 33-hotel UK portfolio for £900 million from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
New York City-based KKR & Co. Inc and Boston-based Baupost Group bought a 33-hotel portfolio from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The price tag for the hotels is £900 million.
Trinity, Oaktree and Partners acquire The Standard, London
Trinity Investments, Oaktree Capital Management and Partners Group have acquired The Standard, London, a 266-key hotel in the Kings Cross area of London for an undisclosed price. The hotel, now part of Hyatt Hotels Corp., opened in 2019, when it was converted in 2015 for £60 million, according to CoStar.
Partners Group acquires majority share of Spain’s Bluesea Hotels
Swiss investment firm Partners Group announced it has acquired a majority stake in Palma de Mallorca-based hotel firm Bluesea Hotels in a partnership with private equity firm Portobello Capital. No financial details on the transaction were provided.
Dalata continues portfolio push with €83 million Dublin Airport hotel acquisition
Irish hotel firm Dalata Hotel Group signed an agreement with seller CG Hotels Dublin Airport Ltd. to purchase the 229-room Radisson Hotel Dublin Airport for €83 million ($90.5 million). The hotel, which has a lease of 107 years on it, will be rebranded under Dalata’s Clayton brand.
Deals and developments
Z Hotels, which already has 11 hotels in London and 15 in the United Kingdom, is opening a 95-room hotel on London’s Leicester Square in January.
The Cloud One Gdańsk has opened in the Polish Baltic Ocean city with a room count of 327. Part of German hotel firm Motel One GmbH, the hotel is the brand's debut in Poland and joins five other hotels in Düsseldorf, Hamburg, New York City, Nuremburg and Prague.
Miiro Hotels will open its third Miiro-branded hotel, Miiro, Templeton Garden, in London next April. The property will have 156 rooms and occupy a site in the capital’s Earl’s Court district. That hotel will be complemented by two upcoming hotels in Vienna, the 64-room Miiro Palais, Vienna, due to open in the third quarter of 2025 and the 132-room Miiro Maria Theresia, Vienna, which will open in the fourth quarter of 2025. In December, Miiro will also open the 29-room The Mansard in Gstaad, Switzerland.
Scandic Hotels has announced it has signed two long-term lease deals with Stockholm-based owner JV Nordväst Fastighet AB. Both hotels will be converted to the company's Scandic Go brand: a 96-room hotel in Helsingborg, Sweden, and a 103-room property in Jönköping, Sweden. Both hotels will commence a renovations program for a targeted opening in the first half of 2026.
A joint venture of Hamburg-based owner HWS Immobilien- und Vermögensverwaltung GmbH and operator Munich-based MHP Hotel AG have acquired the 293-room Le Méridien Stuttgart, Germany, from Union Investment, which owned the hotel from 2005.
Hotel management firm Aimbridge Hospitality EMEA has opened the 126-room Holiday Inn Express & Suites Ghent, Belgium, a hotel that has been converted from the Holiday Inn Express Ghent.
On Nov. 15, Spanish firm Palladium Hotel Group opened the 119-room 45 Times Barcelona Hotel. It is a return to the city for the company that until 2022 operated three hotels in the Catalan capital under the flag of Ayre Hoteles.
EasyHotel has opened the 111-room EasyHotel Marseille Euromed, the firm’s fourth hotel in France. Together with one hotel in Nice and two in Paris, the new hotel will be joined in 2027 by one in Ferney-Voltaire, which is in France but immediately adjacent to Geneva and the Swiss border.
British hotel firm Travelodge, via its ownership vehicle Travelodge OpCo Group, has acquired its debut standalone freehold acquisition, with the 24,000-square-foot Genesis House office building on Godliman St. in the St Paul’s district of London. It will transform the space into a 95-room hotel, with construction to begin in the first quarter of 2026 and opening to be in the first quarter of the following year.
Irish hotel company Dalata Hotel Group has agreed to a lease on a new hotel in London that will open under its Clayton brand. The 154-room hotel does not have an opening date as yet but will be Dalata’s sixth hotel in the city, for a combined room count of 1,030.
Accor brand Tribe has opened its newest hotel, the 412-room Tribe Manchester Airport, which is owned by ABC Investment & Management and operated by Aimbridge EMEA.
Alchemy Step Hotel Group acquired the 142-room Gresham Belson Hotel in Brussels on Nov. 1. No price was announced. The group now operates 14 hotels in Belgium and Germany.
Owner Percor Capital announced on Nov. 1 that RBH Hospitality Management will be the new operator of its dual-branded hotel property in Dundee, Scotland. The property contains two IHG Hotels & Resorts’ brands, a 102-room Hotel Indigo and an 85-room Staybridge Suites.
A&O Hostels announced on Nov. 1 the opening of its 41st European hotel, the 133-room and 566-bed A&O Antwerpen, in Antwerp, Belgium.
IHG also has announced the signing of the 122-room Crowne Plaza Podgorica, its seventh hotel in Montenegro. Together with owner BIG CEE, it will open the conversion hotel by the end of 2024.
Family office Mar-Bella Collection will open its fourth hotel, the Avali, next summer on the Greek island of Corfu. It will have 76 rooms and be all-inclusive in business model.
The 70-room Jadran Hotel in Rijeka, Croatia, is being rebranded under Marriott International soft-brand flag, Tribute Portfolio. Owned by Gold Tree Hospitality, its new look will be ready early next year. The hotel first opened in 1914.