Hotel News Now each week features a news roundup from a different region of the world. This week’s compilation covers Europe.

Speaking during IHG Hotels & Resorts' third-quarter 2022 earnings call, Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson, chief financial officer and head of group strategy, said the British hotel firm has pushed companywide revenue per available room to above 2019 levels. He also said the company is seeing traction in terms of business hotel demand.

“Against a backdrop of inflationary pressure in most economies around the world, the strength of IHG’s brands is clear with rate up 11% on 2019. As well as leisure rates being up around 15% in the quarter, business rates were up by 7% and group activity also saw rate move into positive territory on 2019 levels,” CEO Keith Barr said.

Edgecliffe-Johnson plans to leave the company early next year.

GLH, the largest hotel owner-operator in London by room count, will now be known as Clermont Hotel Group. The name change comes almost a decade after the company changed its name from Guoman Hotels.

The hotel has two properties called The Clermont, both in London, and owns and manages the Thistle and Thistle Express brands, the Hard Rock London and Guoman Hotels.

Alison Brittain, CEO of Whitbread PLC, which owns and operates the Premier Inn hotel brand, said the firm delivered outstanding results in the first half of the year that saw it ahead of its competitors and well positioned to outlast any inflationary pressures.

It was Brittain's last “major” results presentation for the first as she gets set to join soccer’s Premier League as chair.

"During [my tenure] we have had a great deal of economic, political and social turmoil, and with some financial insecurity. This is a mischievous of me, but I have been here through five [U.K.] prime ministers, seven chancellors of the exchequer, six home secretaries and six foreign secretaries, as well as Brexit and the small matter of a global pandemic.

“But [Whitbread is] 280 years old, and I suspect some of my predecessors would say I am a bit of a wuss for even mentioning such issues,” she said.

Fattal Groups’ European hotel division Leonardo Hotels will invest more than $100 million into the renovation of the Dilly Hotel in London, which dates to 1908 and was once a favorite retreat of King George V.

The hotel, which will have 280 rooms, will join the firm’s portfolio of 52 British and Irish hotels.

Speaking with Hotel News Now’s Terence Baker at the recent Annual Hotel Conference, Jonathan Mills, CEO, Europe, Middle East and Africa, at Choice Hotels International, said the firm has a goal of doubling its regional portfolio to 100,000 rooms within the next five years.

The firm’s June acquisition of the portfolio of Radisson Americas has provided a big boost to that goal, he said.

“For the EMEA region, the benefit of that deal is the ripple effect it is creating. It strengthens our [region’s] position,” Mills said.

EasyHotel has acquired an eight-hotel, 793-room portfolio from private-equity firm Crossroads for 145 million euros ($143 million), or approximately 183,000 euros ($180,000) per room. It formerly leased all the hotels: three in Amsterdam, two in The Hague, one in Maastricht, one in Rotterdam and one in the Belgian capital Brussels.

Icamap and Ivanhoé Cambridge, EasyHotel’s majority owners, underwrote the deal, which grows the flag’s owned and leased real estate by 59%, which represents 26 hotels and more than 3,000 rooms, all of which are in Europe.

• Marriott International will open the 154-room W Prague in the second quarter of 2023, which is a renovation of the former Grand Europa Hotel dating to 1905.
• Deutsche Hospitality opened the 135-room IntercityHotel Herford in Frankfurt on Oct. 4 in collaboration with franchisee Scoop Hotels.
• Accor is to open the 119-room Mama Shelter Rennes, in the Brittany city, in March 2023. The hotel will be the brand’s ninth in France and 17th overall.
• IHG Hotels & Resorts has announced it will open the 92-room Voco Brussels City North in the third quarter of 2023, with the Prem Group being the operator.
• French real estate investment trust Covivio has chosen Scottish firm RBH Hospitality Management to operate three upscale properties in England: the 155-room Principal York, an IHG brand; 120-room Met Hotel Leeds, in the same county of Yorkshire, and 111-room Wotton House Country Estate Hotel, near Dorking, Surrey.
• Whitbread PLC will open the 200-room Premier Inn Rostock, Germany in 2025, in partnership with owner and developer Randalswood Germany, part of the McGrath Group from Ireland.
• Edyn will debut its Locke brand in France with the opening of a 145-room hotel scheduled for the second half of 2024. The aparthotel will be in an 18th century build in Paris’ 5th Arrondissement.
• Owner and developer MTD Group will open its first U.K. property later this month, the luxury, 41-room Sun Street Hotel in London. In a location on the edge of Shoreditch and the City of London, in the One Crown Place development, the asset is to be managed by Bespoke Hotels.
• Swedish hotel owner Pandox has bought for 40 million pounds sterling ($43 million) the 176-room DoubleTree by Hilton Bath in the spa town of Bath, England. The owner is Axiom Hospitality and the seller is a controlled affiliate of Starwood Capital Group.

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