Read the latest hotel industry news from around Europe.

Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings, an Israeli insurance group, has spent 113.7 million pounds sterling ($156.9 million) on a 49% stake in two hotels in London owned and operator by publicly listed PPHE Hotel Group, the 646-room Park Plaza London Riverbank and the 343-room Art’otel London Hoxton, which will open in 2024.

The deal assures Clal will be granted five million share appreciation rights to have a value upside if the gap between the group’s latest reported European Public Real Estate Association Net Asset Value and its current market price narrows over the maturity period. Clal executives said the firm also will spending a 12.1 million pounds sterling to aid development of the Art’otel asset.

The United Kingdom’s hotel industry is beginning to show the most positive signs since the pandemic began. Thomas Emanuel, director of STR — CoStar Group's hospitality analytics firm — said, “U.K. hotels could fully reopen their doors on May 17, and the impact of those restrictions being eased are clear and immediate to see."

In his monthly video, which mostly covers the U.K., Emanuel said the country remains showing occupancy doing well in the regions, not London, and that average daily rate has moved up alongside it. “Since [May 17] weekday troughs are … showing higher occupancy numbers than were former weekends peaks. That pattern of troughs and peaks largely is still happening, but at higher levels overall,” he said.

Executives at Whitbread PLC, the parent of Premier Inn, the largest hotel company in the U.K. by hotel count, are confident that the combination of staycations, pent-up demand and viable sites will soon see it pass the 100,000-room mark.

Speaking in a video interview with Hotel News Now, Mark Anderson, Whitbread's managing director of property and international, said he saw scope to add about 30,000 rooms to reach a total of 110,000. Signings and real estate purchases in the last 18 months will take the firm to 90,000 rooms if completed. Anderson said its first quarter earnings published on June 17 also is fueling optimism, especially following the reopening of hotels on May 17.

“We have traded very well in the last four weeks," he said. "We’ve just updated the city of London … and we’ve seen some good demand come into the network over the last few weeks, so that’s giving us real encouraging signs.”

Anne Golden said her hotel, the 237-room Pan Pacific London, and her employer, Singapore-based Pan Pacific Hotels Group, are preparing for a new chapter as Pan Pacific puts the finishing touches to its European debut, which opens on Sept. 1, writes Hotel News Now's Terence Baker.

Golden said the most difficult thing in the last 18 months during the development and launching of the hotel, which will comprise a 43-floor tower and 150-year-old Devonshire House, is not having been able to go on-site to check on progress.

“The inability to show event organizers or prospective guests around the hotel has led to a lot of virtual tours being given by the sales and events teams,” she added.

Preliminary data for May 2021 from STR showed that hotels in Berlin posted “slightly higher performance compared with previous months but at overall low levels.”

According to its data, occupancy for the period was 17%, average daily rate was 70.53 euros ($83.58) and revenue per available room was 11.99 euros, which despite being all on the low side were the highest levels the three key performance metrics have reached since October 2020.

Soho House, a firm of hotel-clubs for private members, has confirmed intends to float the company on the New York Stock Exchange and be listed under the ticker-tape symbol MCG, for Membership Collective Group. The flotation is valued at approximately $3 billion, according to the firm.

There currently are 28 Soho House assets, with a further 18 in the pipeline, as well as a coworking division and two hotels, The Ned in London and Scorpios Beach Club in Mykonos, Greece. A fixed amount of shares will be offered to members, of which it has retained 92% of during the pandemic, with a waiting list of 48,000 applicants, according to the newspaper. In 2020, Soho House's revenue almost halved to $384 million, with the business recording a $235 million loss.

• Marriott International has debuted its soft brand Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts in Budapest with the opening of the 130-room Matild Palace, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Budapest. Owned by Özyer Group, this hotel occupies a UNESCO-listed building and has undergone a five-year renovation.

• IHG Hotels & Resorts has announced its debut in Albania with the signing of the 140-room Crowne Plaza Durrës, due to open in 2024. In Durrës, the country’s second-largest city after capital Tirana, the franchise agreement is with owner Mediterranean Investment Group.

• LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has announced Sept. 7 will be the opening day of its much-anticipated hotel, the 72-key Cheval Blanc Paris, which will overlook the River Seine and feature a restaurant from three Michelin-starred chef Arnaud Donckele. The hotel will be part of the also restored Samaritaine Paris Pont-Neuf department store that dates to 1907.

• Hilton plans to debut its Conrad brand in Italy with the opening of the 107-room Conrad Chia Laguna Sardinia in 2022.

• Scandic Hotels and owner Vasakronan have signed an agreement to open the 451-room Scandic Göteborg Central in Gothenburg, Sweden, which will open in the second quarter of 2022 adjacent to the city’s central rail station.

• Viceroy Hotels & Resorts has opened the 119-room Viceroy Kopaonik Serbia in Kopaonik in one of the country’s principal ski resorts and close to the border with Kosovo.

• Hyatt Hotels Corp. has announced the debut of its 7Pines Resort brand in Europe with the 7Pines Resort Ibiza, a Destination by Hyatt Hotel. As Hyatt’s first hotel on this Balearic Island isle of Ibiza, it will have 185 suites.

• Wirefox has bought the 36-room The Scores Hotel in St Andrews, Scotland, for an undisclosed sum. This is the first time the asset has changed owners in 34 years. It overlooks the famous golf course, which has often hosted the Open Championship and will do so again in 2022.