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1. Sternlicht mulls reviving Starwood Hotels & Resorts name
Barry Sternlicht, chairman and CEO at Starwood Capital Group, has hinted that he intends to rename his firm’s hotel division, SH Hotels & Resorts, as Starwood Hotels & Resorts. This comes nearly a decade after the firm sold the original Starwood Hotels & Resorts to Marriott International for $13 billion, according to the New York Times. SCG’s website did not mention the news.
SH Hotels & Resorts currently has three brands: 1 Hotels, Baccarat and Treehouse. The New York Times reports Sternlicht might announce additional brands, stating that he “has been working on at least one more brand.”
It added Sternlicht "had no intention of selling the hotel company, [but] he had considered selling a small portion to raise money for further international expansion.” According to its own website, SH has “raised over $80 billion of capital and currently has approximately $115 billion of assets under management" since it was founded in 1991.
2. Edinburgh passes UK’s first hotel tourism tax
The Scottish capital Edinburgh has become the first United Kingdom market to impose a tourism tax. The City of Edinburgh Council passed a regulation to start adding a 5% charge to overnight accommodation at a special meeting on Jan. 24.
UKHospitality Scotland said it has persuaded councilors to delay the “start of the visitor levy transition period" to Oct. 1, a move that will provide hotels “a further three months to prepare to collect levy funds for bookings made" for July 24, 2026, onward, when the levy will go into effect.
Leon Thompson, executive director of UKHospitality Scotland, said: “Not only has Edinburgh’s visitor levy been confirmed, but so too has the hit to the city’s competitiveness as a leading tourist destination.”
Council leader Jane Meagher put a different spin on the news, stating that the decision was a "historic moment for Edinburgh. Introducing this ground-breaking visitor levy means realizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest tens of millions of pounds towards enhancing and sustaining the things that make our city such a great place to visit.”
Enacting a tourism tax on hotel stays is a bit more complicated elsewhere in the United Kingdom. In England, no council can impose a hotel tax; instead such laws must be passed by the national government.
3. Hong Kong hotel Cozi Harbor sells at 37% discount
Hong Kong-based Nanyang Commercial Bank, a wholly owned division of China Cinda Asset Management, has completed the acquisition of the 598-room Hotel Cozi Harbour View, according to Hong Kong newspaper The Standard.
The family of the late property mogul Tang Shing-bor is the seller of the hotel, with the price stated to have been $1.87 billion Hong Kong dollars ($240 million), or HK$31.3 million per key.
The Standard said the sale price is “40% below the offer price in March 2022 of HK$3.1 billion ($398 million).” A more exact approximation of the discount is 37%.
4. UAE’s A. A. Al Moosa acquires Dubai’s Mövenpick Jumeirah Beach
Family office A. A. Al Moosa Enterprise, part of the United Arab Emirates-based Arenco Group, has acquired the 297-room hotel Mövenpick Jumeirah Beach Residence in Dubai from Oman-based Bank Muscat, according to Gulf News. No price tag was announced, but the hotel has been owned by Bank Muscat since 2014, according to CoStar.
In 2014, Gulf Business reported that Bank Muscat subsidiary BMJBR Properties had secured a 200 million UAE dirham ($54.45 million) financing package to help acquire the hotel. A. A. Al Moosa’s hotels division, Golden Sands Hotels, contains an additional 16 hotels, according to its website. All are in the UAE except for one hotel in Oman, and its brand partners include Hilton, Marriott International and Accor, among others.
5. Dublin’s Morrison Hotel placed on market starting at €90 million
Dublin’s Morrison Hotel, part of Hilton’s Curio Collection, has been put on the market, according to Hospitality Ireland. The guide price is between €90 million ($94.4 million) to €95 million, or between €573,250 to €605,100 per key. The property will be sold with a room count of 157, not its current 145.
The hotel, which opened in 1999, is owned by Zetland Capital Partners, which bought the property in May 2021 for £55.8 million, or £385,000 per room, according to CoStar data.
In 2023, Zetland financed debt of €42.6 million with Leumi Bank on the property via its special-purpose vehicle Centauro Investment XI SAR, according to EG Radius.