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

The runaway success of the luxury hotel segment has been one of the major talking points of the post-pandemic recovery. While it still has a lot of running power, luxury demand is changing, with one notable development being the shift of luxury spending from the U.S. to Europe, Aoife Roche, commercial director at STR, said in a video interview with HNN.

Executives at Luxembourg’s IREMIS fund, which in part is targeting hotel investments in secondary German cities, said today’s challenging macroeconomic environment requires firms to have expertise and a strong track record of investments across different asset classes.

Investment into Scottish commercial property reached 320 million pounds sterling ($403 million) in the second quarter of 2023, a significant year-over-year increase, but still down 35% compared with the five-year quarterly average.

Hannes Dreher's passion for hospitality first began when he was a tennis instructor at a hotel in the Dominican Republic in the '90s. He has since turned that passion into a career managing the operations of hotels — now at the DoubleTree by Hilton Berlin Ku’damm, reports HNN's Dana Miller.

IHG Hotels & Resorts has named its new midscale conversion brand Garner, an IHG Hotel. IHG's 19th brand, initially focused on the U.S., was hinted at during the company’s half-year 2023 earnings results conference call on Aug. 8.

• Owner Lamington Group will open the third hotel of its in-house brand, the 175-room Room2 Belfast, on Oct. 16;
• Whitbread PLC opened at the end of July the 80-room Premier Inn London Camden, part of its Hub by Premier brand, in north London;
• Owner Fragrance Group appointed RBH Hospitality Management to manage its 72-room The Grand Atlantic Hotel in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, England. It is the 11th hotel that RBH is to manage under its partnership with Fragrance;
• The Radisson Red brand has debuted in Eastern Europe with the 111-room Radisson Red Tbilisi, Georgia, in a century-old building that has been up to now a post office;
• The 57-room Broadwick Soho is to open in November on the corner of Broadwick and Berwick streets in the Soho district of London. Its owners say the hotel has a range of inspirations, including the Jazz Age, Italian travels and English eccentricity;
• Rosewood Hotels & Resorts is to open on Sept. 29 the 131-room Rosewood Munich in mansion Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, the former headquarters of the State Bank of Bavaria. It is the firm’s sixth hotel in Europe and eighth in the EMEA region;
• Hard Rock International and owner Mercan Properties are to develop the 275-room Hard Rock Hotel Algarve near Praia do Vau, Portimão, Portugal. Construction is due to start early next year, with an opening planned for 2026. The property also will have 150 branded residences;
• Red Carnation Hotels has said its 30-room 100 Princes Street hotel in the Scottish capital Edinburgh will begin welcoming guests on Nov. 1 in the former Royal Overseas League building;
• Ennismore, the luxury and boutique division of Accor, has announced it is to open the 175-room Mama Shelter Liverpool in 2025 in the George Henry Lee Building that since the 1940s has housed a branch of department store John Lewis. Landlab, based in Dubai, is the owner;
• Bangkok-based S Hotels & Resorts has bought the freehold of the 91-room Mercure Glasgow City from real estate investment trust Alternative Income for 7.5 million pounds sterling ($9.5 million). Its United Kingdom portfolio now consists of 27 hotels and approximately 2,940 rooms;
• Another hotel to open in London, this one, managed by Place III Hotles, is the 199-room BoTree at a point where the city’s West End joins Marylebone. It is to debut on Sept. 15;
• Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts opened on Aug. 28 the 89-room Dornoch Station in the Scottish Highlands north of Inverness and will, on Sept. 1, open the 180-room Slieve Donard adjacent to the Royal Country Down Golf Club, Northern Ireland;
• IHG is to open in 2027 with owner Sharjah Asset Management the 191-room Voco Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. SAM is the investment division of the government of the emirate of Sharjah. It also signed a deal with Beirut-based firm DIA SARL to operate the 123-room Voco Beirut Central District in the Lebanese capital.

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