Hotel News in Brief

Jul 09, 09 | 1:45 am

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. has announced that the Company has signed an agreement to sell the W San Francisco for $90 million to Keck Seng Investments (Hong Kong) Limited, a hotel investment and property development company listed on the Hong Kong stock market. The sales price is immediately accretive to earnings and represents a multiple of over 14X anticipated 2009 EBITDA. The buyer is well-known to Starwood and currently owns three other Starwood hotels. Additionally, Starwood has retained a long-term management agreement to continue operating the hotel as a W. The W brand continues to grow globally, and is poised to more than double its footprint from 25 hotels today to 60 hotels by 2011. The sale, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close on July 30, 2009. The sale of the W San Francisco represents one of a few select asset dispositions that Starwood is pursuing to further reduce its debt levels.


Travel search site Skyscanner has launched new hotel search functionality at http://www.skyscanner.net/hotels. Powered by HotelsCombined, the hotel search function allows Skyscanner users to search over 200,000 hotels across 195 countries, comparing prices from the biggest suppliers in the business such as Holiday Inn, Hilton, Booking.com, Hotels.com and LateRooms.com. Frank Skivington, commercial VP for Skyscanner said: "As well as finding the cheapest flights and car hire, now Skyscanner users can find the cheapest hotels too. It's all part of the strategy for Skyscanner to become a one stop shop for travel, building on our already immensely popular flight search engine."


The Rezidor Hotel Group announces the 50th hotel in operation and under development in Germany: The Radisson Blu Badischer Hof Hotel, Baden-Baden will be re-branded in July 2009 - adding 139 rooms to Rezidor's rapidly growing portfolio. "This signing underlines our aim to further grow into depth in our German home market and also to increase the number of conversions we are doing", comments Kurt Ritter, President & CEO of Rezidor. "With our partner Grand City Hotels & Resorts and Mark Hotels & Resorts we are already cooperating at the Radisson Blu Hotels in Stralsund, Bad Reichenhall, Dresden-Radebeul, and with the Park Inn brand in Weimar. We are delighted to add a fifth property", continues Ritter. Built in 1638, the property was originally a Capucin Monastery, converted from 1805 till 1809 to become a hotel. In 1983, the hotel was extended through the addition of a second building and most recently, a modern spa and wellness centre was completed in 2000.


yoo, the international branding and interior design consultancy has partnered with Absolute Developments, the well regarded property arm of the Absolute Group, to create and build yooPhuket, a mixed-use deluxe retreat in the popular Thai isle of Phuket.  Launching this November, the properties will be completed for occupation in 2011 and offer strong investment potential to purchasers with pre-launch sale prices discounted by 15%. The apartments offer a unique high-end holiday retreat with strong rental yields in a resilient year-round holiday destination, targeting both European tourists & expats and Asian tourists.  Through Absolute's rental programme, property yield in the first three years is estimated at 7 to 8% and around 8 to 9% thereafter. John Hitchcox, Founder and Chairman of yoo comments: "This is the first of two developments in Thailand with Absolute Developments by the yoo design studio and we felt the time was right to partner with a strong and reputable company like Absolute to offer a sound property investment to purchasers.  "The apartments at yooPhuket give buyers the opportunity to enjoy a yoo property - designed with innovative flair, at an accessible price-tag.  Off-plan buyers can expect to see at least a 30% gain in the value of their property by the time the development is complete, making this a very attractive prospect."


Quest Serviced Apartments won the ‘Brand of the Year Award' at the Australia, New Zealand & Pacific Hotel Investment Conference (ANZPHIC 09), beating six other competitors to snare the coveted title. Brand of the Year, which was one of five categories awarded and was announced on 3 July, was evaluated by the number of openings and re-brandings by new and refurbished hotels, resorts and serviced apartments in Australia in 2008. The award also took into account the spread and importance of brand expansion. Paul Constantinou, Quest CEO said, "We were extremely honoured to win Brand of the Year. It recognises the importance Quest places on site selection for its properties, the style of the properties, the facilities they offer and our commitment to providing exceptional guest experiences.


BNS, Asia's leading IPTV technology and content solutions provider, has deployed its RoomWise HD-IPTV in-room entertainment solution at a new hotel recently opened by Hong Kong's Empire Hotel Group. Located in the city's Causeway Bay district, the hotel offers 276 guest rooms which are equipped with state of the art in-room facilities, including BNS's RoomWise HD-IPTV solution. BNS's system provides 26 local and international HD and SD channels and VoD services which are shown on the hotel's 42" in-room flat-screen TVs and also includes next generation front end interactivity features that take advantage of the latest HD IP-STB technology, which is currently a first in Hong Kong. "For our new Empire Hotel in Causeway Bay we wanted to create a truly memorable in-room experience which required an innovative entertainment and information system to handle our wide range of services", said Richard Ng, Group General Manager of The Empire Hotels & Resorts. "By employing BNS RoomWise solution, we believe that our guests will enjoy the ease and efficiency in receiving the useful information and hotel services that we provide." Designed around the Empire Hotel's corporate look and feel, the walled garden hospitality features include Real Time Flight information, Weather, Room Service, HD TV Casual Games, Local Map and Points of Interest, House Keeping mode, Express Check Out, Folio Review, World Time and TV Alarm, TV Messaging and others.


IHG has announced two new Holiday Inn Express hotels are putting down roots in Kingston and Brockville. The Kingston location opened on June 2, 2009, while the Brockville hotel opened on July 1, 2009. The new-build properties will showcase the Holiday Inn Express brand's new sign, which is the seal of approval that these hotels exemplify the standards of the $1 billion Holiday Inn® brand relaunch program. First announced in 2007, the relaunch program was established to create a more contemporary brand image as part of the drive to increase quality and consistency across the global portfolio.  The program focuses on arrival and welcome services, guestroom and guest bath comfort.  The global estate of more than 3,200 Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express properties is expected to be relaunched by the end of 2010, and more than 900 hotels have been relaunched to date.


Reed Business Information (RBI), a Reed Elsevier company, announced today that it had agreed in principle to transfer its travel publishing division to the entrepreneur Clive Jacobs. The division publishes Travel Weekly, Travolution, Gazetteers.com and associated online services and events. The agreed consideration is not being disclosed. The deal was initiated by Simon Ferguson who left RBI in March 2009 after six years as publishing director of the travel portfolio. He will become chief executive of the newly-acquired business, TW Group Ltd.