Marriott Makes A Fifth Visit To Prague - General Cluster Policy Heralds Ryan’s Last Stand - Rezidor SAS Wants To Be With Golden Arch Hotels - Rafaelhoteles Has No Hesitation About A Move To Barcelona - Sharm’ll Shake Up Jordan - Whitbread To Test The Spa Water - Two Floors Are Better Than None - Club Med Gets Burnt - CHE Group Takes A Little Down On The Chin - Bennett Or Pierse: Which Will Be Sunk? - Selfridges Will Look Round The Back For A Hotel - Mere Court Caught For A Mere £3.25 Million - Scottish & Newcastle Hosts Fifteen-To-One
Marriott Makes A Fifth Visit To Prague
Marriott International has pencilled in 2005 as the year when the Courtyard by Marriott brand will make its debut in the Czech Republic. The 161-room Prague Courtyard by Marriott will stand on the mixed-use Luxembourg Plaza development thanks to a management agreement signed by Marriott and the Orco Property Group, which was advised by HVS International. Further east, Russia's Metalloinvest must contemplate demolition before construction, as it looks to raze the Minsk Hotel in Moscow and re-create its likeness in the form of a US$100 million 337-room replacement. A local report suggests that if Metalloinvest is successful in this venture, and work is expected to take two years starting this year, it might attempt something similar with another Sovietera Moscow hotel, the Tsentralnaya.
General Cluster Policy Heralds Ryan's Last Stand
Gresham Hotel Group has brought recent speculation to an end by selling the three Ryan hotels on the west coast of Ireland for some €1.1 million more than their combined net book value of €34.6 million. Gresham's new focus on the establishment of clusters of hotels meant that the 168-room Killarney Ryan Hotel (sold to Hepton Developments for €13.86 million), the 181-room Limerick Ryan Hotel (to Budelli for €11.0 million) and the 96-room Galway Ryan Hotel (to Elite Catering for €10.89 million) became surplus to requirements. The sale of the hotels in Limerick and Galway is expected to complete by the middle of July, and that of the Killarney hotel by the end of November. Three hotels and three owners, but only one manager: Choice Hotels Ireland, which is likely to bring all three hotels under the umbrella of the Quality brand.
Rezidor SAS Wants To Be With Golden Arch Hotels
Rezidor SAS Hospitality has decided that Switzerland should be the latest stop for the Park Inn brand, which will call on the two four-star Golden Arch hotels there. The rebranding of the 211-room property at Zürich Airport and its 80- room companion at Lully/Estavayer-Le-Lac, both established by the McDonald's Corporation two years ago, does not though mean the end of the Golden Arch name. Rezidor SAS, in partnership with Urs Hammer, the Chairman of Golden Arch Hotels Switzerland, is looking at fattening it up into an international budget hotel chain.
Rafaelhoteles Has No Hesitation About A Move To Barcelona
Spanish hotelier Rafaelhoteles will open its second hotel in Barcelona in 2005 after Grupo Castmor secured the right to redevelop an existing building in the Ensanche district as a four-star hotel. The 126-room property will be a companion for the 115-room Rafaelhoteles Diagonal Port, and brings the company's hotel portfolio to six. Madrid, meanwhile, has been the setting for some transfer activity: the transfer of the ownership of the NH Lagasca from property developer Grupo Inmocaral to the hotel's operator NH Hoteles. According to reports, it was the excellent profitability and central location of the 100-room hotel that persuaded NH Hoteles to part with €17.2 million.
Sharm'll Shake Up Jordan
The latest project in the pipeline at the Jordanian Ministry of Water and Irrigation will see the Arabian Sharm Investment Company, a subsidiary of Egypt's Sharm Investment Group, build a five-star hotel and spa complex on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea. Work on the US$52 million 270-room hotel and 120 serviced apartments is due to start next year and will take three years to complete. The scheme is one of many beginning to sprout along a 60 km stretch of the shoreline at the behest of the Jordan Valley Authority, which launched its 15-year development plan for the area in 1995.
Whitbread To Test The Spa Water
Whitbread is to travel around inside a region encircled by the M25 London Orbital motorway in a search for suitable sites (ideally 1.5 acres in area) on which to build perhaps as many as six spa outlets. If this pilot project is successful, then reports suggest that the company would open spas across the UK. The as yet unbranded concept would remain distinct from the spa operations in Whitbread's Marriott-branded hotels and those at its David Lloyd Leisure health clubs.
Two Floors Are Better Than None
Potential guests of the Sheraton Tirana Hotel & Towers who have been waiting patiently for the doors to open at what is Albania's only five-star hotel have now at least been given access to two of the nine floors. Mak Albania, which began work on the US$55 million 151-room hotel nine years ago, hopes to have the hotel fully open by October. Tourists who cannot wait until the autumn might like either to venture north up the Adriatic coast to the resort of Selce in Croatia, where local construction company Izgradnja has opened the US$8.8 million 50-room, four-star Marina hotel, or to strike out southeast to Greece, where local operator Aegeon has opened its third hotel in the northeastern port of Salonika: the 43-room, four-star Egnatia Palace Hotel.
Club Med Gets Burnt
French tour operator Club Méditerranée (Club Med) will probably not feel up to romping in the surf this summer after it saw its net loss for the six months to 30 April widen from €25 million to €29 million. Turnover was 3.8% lower at €785 million, but at least the company did manage to turn an operating loss of €4 million into a profit of €12 million. There are dark clouds on the horizon though: bookings for the summer season, as at 7 June, were down 13.5% on last year.
CHE Group Takes A Little Down On The Chin
Choice Hotels Europe (CHE Group) is slimmer and has shed some debt, which is just as well in a climate that is testing the fitness of many a hotel company. Shareholders at CHE Group's annual general meeting were told that internal woes over increased costs and the ravages of the conflict in Iraq and the Sars virus had left like-for-like revenue in the first five months of the year a little down; the company expected that business would not show real signs of recovery until the autumn. While they wait for the leaves to fall, shareholders can spend the summer reflecting on their company's promise to create value for them by continuing to dispose of assets, some through sale and leaseback, as CHE Group looks to move away from ownership and into the management and operation of hotels. Meanwhile, CHE Group's cousin, Choice Hotels Scandinavia, is to pay an unnamed Swedish subsidiary of the Norwegian real estate group Aspelin-Ramm a reported €30.3 million for the 184-room Quality Hotel 11 in the Swedish city of Gothenburg.
Bennett Or Pierse: Which Will Be Sunk?
Bennett Construction is battling it out with Pierse Construction for the right to convert a derelict former swimming baths in the Irish port of Dún Laoghaire. Bennett envisages a 104-room hotel, reportedly to be operated by Ramada International, whereas Pierse may prefer an aparthotel; the local council will decide by the end of July. Along the coast in Dublin, Golden Tulip has requested permission, reports the Irish Times, to build a 157-room hotel near the airport. Elsewhere, in Co. Tipperary, unnamed developers will be hoping that they are not a long way from securing the planning approval that would allow the construction of a €30 million 112-room hotel and conference centre in Clonmel.
Selfridges Will Look Round The Back For A Hotel
Selfridges has secured permission from Westminster Council to proceed with the £500 million redevelopment of its flagship store on Oxford Street in central London. In partnership with Stanhope, Selfridges expects to add a hotel behind the store as part of an extension covering some 46,000 m². Still awaiting a green light, up north in the city of Leeds, is MetroHolst, which wants to build a 200- room hotel for Menzies Hotels as part of a £70 million mixed-use development. Over the border in Scotland, Guy Hands will be encouraging the builders at the four-star Norton House hotel in Edinburgh with £5 million as he looks to extend the 47-room property, part of his Hand Picked Hotels portfolio, by 36 rooms and add a conference centre.
Mere Court Caught For A Mere £3.25 Million
The privately owned company Edgeman has paid £3.25 million for the four-star Mere Court Hotel & Conference Centre near Knutsford in Cheshire. The company, which secured funding for the venture from the Royal Bank of Scotland, now hopes to make a purchase in the northeast of England. Were Edgeman looking for something in southwest England, however, they could choose from two: either the privately owned 62-room Bishops Court Hotel in Torquay, Devon, which has an asking price of £2.85 million, or the 17-room Dukes Hotel in Bath, on offer for £2.5 million.
Scottish & Newcastle Hosts Fifteen-To-One
Guy Hands is reported to be one of at least 15 bidders who will be leafing through Scottish & Newcastle's (S&N) information memorandum come the end of this month. He is definitely in the race notes The Times, and his keenness to relieve S&N of its Managed Retail division the 1,450 pubs and the Premier Lodge hotel chain put up for sale at the end of April will doubtless be matched by the likes of Mitchells & Butlers, Permira and entrepreneur Hugh Osmond. In April S&N put the net book value of the estate at some £2.3 billion.
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