Hotel News Now each week features a news roundup from a different region of the world. This week’s compilation covers Europe.
Thomas Cook Group in £750m shakeup
Casa Cook brand owner Thomas Cook Group, mostly known for its package vacations, is in advanced talks with banks and its largest shareholder Chinese firm Fosun International for a £750-million ($937 million) cash injection, which would see Fosun becomes the majority shareholder in Thomas Cook’s tour-operations business and a significant minority interest in the group’s airline.
Thomas Cook’s CEO Peter Fankhauser said the deal “would provide sufficient liquidity to trade over the winter 2019/2020 season and the financial flexibility to invest in the business for the future.”
Developers shy away from Rome’s mixed performance
Rome is posting mixed and sluggish numbers in the first half of 2018. RevPAR is up just 0.5%, and this slowness is keeping developers at bay, according to STR’s Jan Freitag, with supply growing only 0.4% in 2017, 0.6% in 2018 and, so far in 2019, by only four hotels.
Visitors are helping push up numbers, Freitag added, with, for full-year 2018, the Italian capital’s 521 hotels selling more than 10.8 million roomnights, an increase of 2.2% over 2018. Tourism Economics predicts almost 10 million international visitors would arrive to Rome by the end of this year, which would be an increase of 1.5% over 2018.
Moscow, St. Petersburg retain form following World Cup
Despite predictions that there would be an inevitable dip in performance in Moscow and St. Petersburg following the hosting of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the two Russian cities have largely defied expectations, according to HNN contributor Vladislav Vorotnikov.
In Moscow, April 2019 year-to-date occupancy increased 1.5%, while ADR rose 4.3% to 5,550.28 Russian rubles ($88.11) and RevPAR increased 5.9% to 3,705.29 rubles ($58.82), while in St. Petersburg, occupancy rose 5.9% to 49.5% year to date through April 2019, while ADR increased 2.7% to 4,316.72 rubles ($68.52) and RevPAR rose 8.7% to 2,136.77 rubles ($33.92).
India-Pakistan cricket fires Manchester performance
The International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup might have been won by England, but perhaps the most anticipated fixture in the first round was the meeting between fierce rivals and cricket-obsessed India and Pakistan, which took place in Manchester on 16 June, according to Hotel News Now’s Terence Baker.
Fortunately, there is a hotel inside the Old Trafford, Manchester, cricket stadium where the match unfolded. Michael Hewson, GM of the 150-room Hilton Garden Inn Emirates Old Trafford, said, “the excitement around the stadium, and to be honest in Manchester as a whole, was extraordinary.”
Manchester posted an 18% increase in average daily rate to £110.33 ($138.74) and a 28.8% increase in revenue per available room to £91.58 ($115.16).
Marriott to contest £100m data-breach fine
Marriott International said it intended to “respond and vigorously defend its position” regarding a £99.2-million ($124 million) fine assessed by the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office relating to a data breach of the Starwood reservations database, which took place before Marriott’s 2016 acquisition of the hotel chain.
Marriott’s president and CEO Arne Sorenson said the company was “disappointed with this notice of intent from the ICO, which we will contest. … Marriott has been cooperating with the ICO throughout its investigation into the incident, which involved a criminal attack against the Starwood guest reservation database.”
In Western Europe, serviced apartments outpace hotels
According to HVS, western European serviced apartments are outpacing traditional hotels in terms of RevPAR and continue to see strong momentum, now accounting for approximately 10% of the total “hotel” loan portfolio in the region.
According to HVS London Director Sophie Perret and Associate Simon Hulten, “alternative concepts—co-living, co-working, student accommodation and home-sharing and so forth—are merging with the serviced apartment concept, creating hybrids as a response to changing demand behaviors.”
Deals and developments
- InterContinental Hotels Group opened the 240-room Holiday Inn Gdansk City Centre in the Northern Polish city in cooperation with long-standing development partner UBM Development AG.
- Hyatt Hotels Corporation opened the 221-room Hyatt Regency Chantilly in the French town of Chantilly near Paris.
- Accor brand Mama Shelter has announced it is opening its debut London property in the city’s Hackney neighborhood, the 195-room Mama London due to open in September.
- Invesco Real Estate has acquired two forward-purchase deals of Italian hotels for a total of €160 million ($179 million). The two properties are an Accor-branded 25hours Hotel in Florence and a NH Hotel Group’s asset in Milan.
- Covivio has purchased an almost one-third stake in a portfolio of 32 hotels owned by AXA Investment Managers. The hotels, all operated by Accor, are valued at €550 million ($617 million), with the 32% bought by Covivio valued at approximately €176 million ($197.4 million). Thirty of the hotels are in France, the other two in Belgium, with a total of 6,221 keys, 43% of which are within the Paris orbital road.
- Spain’s Hotel Investment Partners has signed an agreement with fellow nationals Room Mate Hotels to invest €23 million ($25.8 million) to develop Room Mate’s first resort, the 390-room Pax Barracuda that will combine two previous hotels, the Barracuda and Calviá Dreams and open in April 2020.
Compiled by Terence Baker.