Hotel News in Brief

May 26, 08 | 1:46 am

China has more than 1,700 budget hotels. Research and Markets has published China Budget Hotel Report, 2007-2008. Amongst much else it tells us that by the end of 2007, China had 1,689 budget hotels and 180,000 guest rooms. The main budget hotel chain brands are Star of Jinjiang, Home Inn, Motel, Super 8, Sunny Youth Hotel, GreenTree Inn, 7 Days, Vienna, and Joy Inn. Source: China Economic Review

The recently opened St. Regis Singapore has earned a prestigious place on Travel + Leisure magazine's ‘It List 2008' of the world's top 30 new hotels. The accolade follows hot-on-the-heels of inclusion on the highly coveted annual Condé Nast Traveler "Hot List" of the hottest new hotels, restaurants and spas around the world. Opened officially only last month, the St. Regis is the only hotel in Singapore on Travel + Leisure's annual ‘It List'. The magazine applauded: "Where the property stands out is in the service. The multilingual butlers are rigorously trained, and we found their graciousness refreshing in the midst of Singapore's often harried atmosphere. In Asia, the hotel is nominated in such prestigious company as Peninsula Tokyo and internationally, it ranks alongside luxury properties including The Plaza, New York, Le Meurice, Paris and The Connaught, London.


IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) is bringing its award-winning globally recognised Holiday Inn brand back to Chennai, India's third largest city and where India's first Holiday Inn hotel was established 35 years ago, in 1973. Holiday Inn Estancia Chennai, a brand new 200-room, 75-suite hotel, will be developed by leading India-based construction and engineering company L&T Arun Excello Commercial Projects Ltd and managed by IHG. The hotel will be part of the 82-acre Estancia Integrated Township, a mixed use development with a technology park earmarked as a special economic zone. Scheduled to open in 2011, the hotel is developed at an investment of US$35 million. The Estancia Integrated Township is being jointly developed by L&T Urban Infrastructure Ltd and the Arun Excello Group of Companies. Features include a residential zone with 1,900 apartments, a 3,000,000 square feet technology park, a retail mall with multiplex and a school. The entire project is designed by RMJM, a leading US architectural firm. The township is located 35 kilometres south of Chennai's city centre, along the National Highway 45 with easy access to the international airport and suburban railway network.

Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts has just launched their new and elegant website. The new site is precisely tailored to user needs and perfectly reflects the upscale image of the international hotel group with Swiss roots. User friendliness, regular updates, information content, clarity of presentation and design were the most important criteria in the re-launch of www.moevenpick-hotels.com. The new website developed by the Munich-based agency Ray Sono specialising in online portals involved, apart from a new concept and design, a comprehensive content management system as well as a new and completely integrated booking engine (RedX Reservation System).

Pan Pacific Serviced Suites' Personal Assistants (PAs) have undergone an intensive training programme aimed at grooming master butlers to serve royalty, dignitaries and celebrities. The newly launched Pan Pacific Serviced Suites believes that it is the only serviced suites accommodation where residents can rely on round-the-clock Personal Assistants to provide them local city connections. Pan Pacific Serviced Suites has specially engaged Wayne Fitzharris, Founder and Director of The International Guild of Butlers and Housemanagers, to design a customised programme to train its personalised service staff to provide the highest level of personalised service to its guests. Wayne has more than 25 years of butler experience and has served dignitaries, celebrities, royalty including the Royal Family of Jordan as well as politicians around the world. He has also trained butlers for royal and private households, and for hotel brands such as the Burj al Arab in Dubai, the Jumeirah Group in Middle East and Per Aquum in the Seychelles. "The Personal Assistant at the Pan Pacific Serviced Suites is akin to a Modern Day Butler.

Boutique Hotels & Resorts International® announced that the Aquila Elounda Village Resort on Crete has achieved Diamond Collection Status in the worldwide network of genuine boutique hotels.  "We are proud to appoint Elounda Village to a very elite group of hotels that can be considered among the absolute best hotels in the world, Boutique's Diamond Collection," said Martin Buehler, Boutique's Chairman. Elounda Village Resort has completed a $30 million renovation, re-furbishing and re-designing guest rooms and suites, restaurants, bars, and public areas over the entire resort of 50,000 square meters.  Custom designed to spotlight its singular Cretan location, local style and unparalleled romantic nature, Elounda Village is the cream of a select crop of world-class boutique resorts.

The Jekyll Island State Park Authority and its redevelopment partner, Linger Longer Communities, are in the process of finalizing plans for Jekyll Island's exciting new convention center, hotel and beach village with construction due to begin this summer. An updated version of the Linger Longer redevelopment plan, to be announced this spring, will include a new convention center for Jekyll Island, as well as a 400-room convention hotel, residential cottages, a mixed-use village center with shops and dining and an Environmental Conservation Center. This $325 million project will replace the aging convention and meeting spaces on Jekyll Island and create a new center for meetings, events and returning vacationers.

South Australia's tourism operators are setting the standard for sustainable tourism experiences and are adopting ecologically sustainable practices into their everyday business operations as they realise the benefits to the environment and their visitors. Chief Executive of the South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC), Andrew McEvoy, says that South Australia is the perfect destination for environmentally aware travellers. "The SATC is demonstrating its commitment to sustainable tourism through its support for Ecotourism Australia's new Climate Change Certification program, which will allow the travelling public to identify accommodation and tours that are committed to reducing their carbon emissions. "South Australia is already a leader in the field of ecologically sustainable tourism development, with around 15% of the nation's Eco Certified tourism operators based here," Mr McEvoy says.

Hostelworld.com, the leading provider of online reservations to the budget accommodation sector has scooped the award for ‘Best Accommodation Site' at the Travelmole Web Awards UK 2008, which took place last Thursday in London. With a record 1,200 entries received for this year's awards Hostelworld beat off stiff competition from a shortlist of 4 accommodation sites take the top honours. Niamh Ni Mhir, Chief Marketing Officer of Hostelworld.com commented "We're delighted to have been awarded ‘Best Accommodation Site'. We have worked hard to maintain our position as the market leader for online hostel reservations and have done so by constantly innovating and improving, giving the site a complete revamp at the end of 2007. To be recognised as the best is a tremendous honour of which we are extremely proud."

Acentic has announced that Dorint Hotels has chosen the Acentic Vision system for in-room entertainment for all of their 35 hotels in more than 6500 rooms. Acentic's system makes the in-room entertainment experience exactly what the guest would want - VOD with a full content library with flash easy navigation.  In addition Acentic made it so easy for Dorint to implement the system that they even replaced many rooms that had competitive systems with Acentic's Vision.

Manchester Grand Resorts has named hospitality industry veteran Deborah Zaharychuk its new corporate director of human resources, in charge of human resources activities for two resorts - the new Grand Del Mar in San Diego and Whitetail Club & Resort in McCall, Idaho. According to Tom Voss, president of Manchester Grand Resorts, Zaharychuk will oversee employee relations, recruitment efforts, training and development, health and safety issues, benefits and insurance, personnel and budgeting for the two Manchester resorts.

New York-based Loews Hotels has extended its relationship with Pegasus Solutions for Pegasus Commission Processing, expanding services to all 18 hotels in the Loews portfolio. Previously, Loews, which is renowned for its innovative and successful travel programs, had tapped Pegasus for only two properties. Loews opted to both renew and add 16 hotels to reap the rewards of fast payment processing realized by two properties during the previous contract, according to Zack Miller-Murphy, vice president and controller, Loews Hotels. "Agents like to get paid, and they like to get paid on time," said Miller-Murphy. "It's really that simple. Rather than renew and give only two properties this advantage with Pegasus Commission Processing, we opted to expand the contract to all of our hotels so they can each have a successful travel agent program as well. For us, travel agents are valued partners, and it's our duty to do what's best for them - to work with Pegasus."