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Stock markets fell noticeably on Monday as traders reacted to a weakened U.S. jobs market and fears of a U.S. recession, according to Reuters. Traders are worried that interest-rate cuts will have to be imposed if the U.S. is to avoid economic decline. It added that “Japanese shares at one point exceeded their 1987 ‘Black Monday,’ referring to Oct. 19, 1987, the biggest single jolt in global stock exchanges of the modern era.”

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average fell 12.4%, while the “broader Topix lost 12.48%. … [and] European shares fell to near six-month lows amid a global selloff in equities on fears of a slowdown in U.S. economic growth, with only a handful of stocks trading in the green.”

Sir Rocco Forte, founder and chairman of Rocco Forte Hotels, criticized a proposed 7% tourism tax under consideration Scotland's capital Edinburgh. Writing in an opinion piece in The Scotsman, Forte said the tax could add “as much as £170 ($217.37) to the cost of a castle view suite at my Edinburgh hotel, The Balmoral.”

He added a 5% tax affects his hotel in Berlin, although there, business travelers are exempt. He said the tax still has a negative effect in the German capital, whereas in most markets imposing a similar levy, the tax is a currency amount, rather than a percentage.

Cammy Day, leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, said that the Scottish government has passed legislation paving the way for and encouraging the imposition of such taxes and that “tourists have come to expect a small fee to visit the world’s top cities, so why not Edinburgh? It works perfectly well in many other European destinations.” In several European cities and resorts there have later been demonstrations against what protesters see as unregulated and uncapped tourism numbers.

A hotel in Kenya with ties to the passing of the British crown has reopened after it was shutdown since the height of the pandemic.

Treetops, near Nairobi, Kenya, was made famous in 1952 when Princess Elizabeth — while a guest with her husband Prince Philip — heard that her father, King George VI, had died and she had become Queen Elizabeth II.

The hotel reopened on Monday.

According to newspaper Citizen Tribune, Francis Gichamba, chair of the Kenya Tourism Board, said the country is celebrating the “revival of an icon in the tourism circuit.” Gichamba added that for the “first time since 2019, Kenya had welcomed more than 2 million visitors and was aiming for 3 million by the end of the year.”

Cairns, in North Queensland, Australia, is showing heightened interest from investors as it sees hotel demand and occupancy increases and more domestic and international flights, Hotel News Now contributor Tamara Thiessen reports.

Wayne Bunz, national director of capital markets and hotels in Australia at business consultancy CBRE, said the “dearth of new hotel supply is driving investment opportunities in Cairns.”

Matthew Burke, regional manager of Pacific, Japan and Central South Asia at STR, CoStar’s hotel-analytics division, said the last luxury hotel to open in the market was the Crystalbrook Flynn in November 2020. “Instead, a number of properties have completed refurbishments in the past five years to reestablish their quality and reposition and support their ADR. That has and will continue to support future occupancy growth with improving demand.”

United Kingdom-based Whitbread PLC has opened its first dual-branded hotel in the London district of Paddington. The company has only two brands, Premier Inn, by far its largest in terms of hotels, and Hub by Premier. The new hotel has 369 rooms.

Whitbread said it has invested heavily in the area, which now is further connected due to the opening of a subway line, the Elizabeth Line, and now has more than 1,000 rooms in the direct catchment area. In total in the U.K., Whitbread has more than 85,000 hotel rooms.

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