Hotel News in Brief

Nov 12, 09 | 1:45 am

The 29th annual Gold Key Awards were given out today at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The ceremony honored excellence in hospitality design in a broad variety of categories, including guestroom, suite, spa, lobby and lounge. Among the winners were AB Concept for the Far Eastern Plaza Hotel in Hong Kong for its lobby/reception area; BAMO for design of the spa and the suites at the Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora in Bora Bora, Tahiti; Richardson Sadeki for the Lapis spa at the Fountainebleu Miami; Marcel Wanders Studio for the Mondrian Miami in the lounge/bat category; and Clodagh Design for the guestrooms at the Miraval  in Catalina, AZ. The Four Seasons Bora Bora Resort also took the top honors for Best Hotel Design-Urban, while the Las Alcobas in Polanco, Mexico designed b Yabu Pushelberg won for Best Hotel Design-Resort. Also honored during the ceremony was the late Jerry Hruby-Holy, founder of Unilight, with the NEWH Icon of the Industry Award. Hruby-Holy's son, Thomas, Unilight's current president, accepted the award on his father's behalf and also presented student Saray Gill with the Icon of Industry Scholarship award. Alexandra Champalimaud, president and principal designer of Champalimaud was presented with the Designer of the Year award. Upon accepting her award, she encouraged the design community to look forward to a bright future. "Let's get ready for 2010, it's going to be a tough one. But I think 2011 is going to be fabulous. We're all in this together," she said.


ibis, the international economy hotel brand of Accor and the worldwide reference in the economy hotel sector, opened its doors in Pune. Strategically situated five minutes away from Pune International Airport and on the prominent Nagar Road artery, the ibis Pune has 175 comfortable, well-designed and fully equipped guest rooms with en suite modular bathrooms, a contemporary fit-out including flat screen TV, Wi-Fi and broadband internet access to suit the needs of both business and leisure travellers. Responsive to the needs of travelers, Ibis Pune will provide round-the-clock reception, value accommodation and food & beverage services to visitors to Pune. Speaking on the occasion Mr. Maverik Mukherjee, General Manager, ibis Pune said "With the opening of ibis Pune, we hope to set new standards of hospitality for economy hotels in the city. The hotel will provide quality, international, economy accommodation to guests with the reassurance of one of the worlds largest and most respected economy hotel brands. We are confident that the hotel will be well received by both international and domestic guests where there has been demand for affordably priced accommodation for sometime."


Latin Fashion Designer Silvia Tcherassi's first namesake hotel, The Tcherassi Hotel + Spa in Cartagena, Colombia has been named one of the Top 10 Designer Hotels by Sherman's Travel Magazine, a leading publisher in travel destination coverage. Tcherassi is joined by several iconic designers' projects such as the Palazzo Versace, Hotel Missoni, Bulgari Hotel in Bali and The G Hotel by Philip Treacy, among five others.  For the latest compilation of its well known and trusted Top 10 lists, Sherman's Travel was looking for properties successful in ‘marrying style and sophistication with extraordinary taste and design sensibility.'  Something the Tcherassi Hotel + Spa carries out to perfection. Happy upon hearing the news, Silvia Tcherassi commented, "It is an honor to be in such great company with designers whose work I have admired throughout my career. Moreover, it is rewarding to see that my vision of translating my fashion concepts into a luxury hotel has been so well received and appreciated." After a meticulous two year restoration and renovation, a 250 year old colonial mansion was transformed by Tcherassi into an oasis of luxury living for the well healed traveller. Tcherassi worked to translate the concepts from her fashion collections such as the fusion of elements, material and trends, the exuberance of nature, effortless elegance and the organic geometry of shapes into a fashion forward, yet comfortable hotel in the heart of a vibrant city. 


Le Meridien Angkor has been voted as a winner of World Travel Awards 2009 in the categories of Cambodia's Leading Hotel and Cambodia's Leading Spa Resort, for the third year consecutive. Based on over 170,000 industry professional votes worldwide for the very best travel, tourism and hospitality products and services, World Travel Awards recently announced these annual prestigious among others at the 16th World Travel Awards 2009 Regional Ceremony in London on 7th November 2009. After bursting on to the international travel and tourism industry more than 15 years with steady and significant impact, the WTA has taken a global lead on one of the most important aspects; the quality customer experience. This is the reason that it has become renowned and coveted awards program in the travel industry. Recently winning the two categories of Cambodia's Leading Hotel and Cambodia's Leading Spa Resort, Gregory Anderson - the hotel's General Manager and his talented team are delighted and overwhelmed for this third year consecutive. "This is a superb testament to our dedicated management team and our associates over the past years. We are very glad and this will also keep us continue serving luxurious products and services", he added.


Tourism New Zealand is targeting the UK youth and backpacker market with a campaign urging them to "Go All The Way" ... to New Zealand. The campaign, worth £650K in total, sees Tourism New Zealand using a combination of social media, an online reality TV show, online and TV advertising, and PR activity. In addition there are partnerships with the tour operators, including STA Travel, and New Zealand Immigration, to tempt UK backpackers to New Zealand in the lead up to the country's peak travel months. George Hickton, Chief Executive of Tourism New Zealand said younger travellers and backpackers had continued to travel during the economic downturn, showing their resilience as a sector. This campaign was to ensure that New Zealand was on the list of places they wanted to visit. Would be travellers will be targeted both at home, before they set off, and again on the East Coast of Australia, encouraging them to make the last leg of the trip to New Zealand. "Many backpackers from the UK and Europe go as far as Australia in their gap-year, but we want to challenge them to complete the journey and ‘Go All The Way' by coming down to New Zealand,' Mr Hickton said. The new campaign will run predominantly online and is spearheaded in the UK with The Gap Year: Challenge New Zealand in partnership with leading entertainment production company Endemol UK. The online reality show will see five young travellers battling it out in New Zealand on a series of extreme challenges over the next four weeks. Each weekday, they will post short videos and updates documenting their amazing adventures on The Gap Year homepages which currently have nearly 12,000 followers across Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and You Tube. Viewers will also be able to get actively involved with the show by interacting with the travellers and influencing their journey. For the first time Tourism New Zealand will also join forces with New Zealand Immigration to actively promote working holiday visas as part of The Gap Year: Challenge New Zealand can be followed on: www.bebo.com/thegapyear; www.facebook.com/thegapyear; www.twitter.com/thegapyear; www.youtube.com/thegapyear; www.myspace.com/thegapyear 


Hilton Worldwide has signed a Management Agreement with Concord Co. for Tourist Development S.A.E. for the first Hilton branded hotel in Marsa Alam, on the west coast of Egypt's Red Sea. The 370-room new-build property, scheduled to open in 2012, will be part of a large integrated mixed-use project to include a residential town, an entertainment village and a congress centre. With 1.5km of beautiful beachfront, Hilton Marsa Alam will be located approximately 20km south of Marsa Alam International Airport, and 30km from Marsa Alam town. "This management agreement gives us a firm footing in the emerging holiday destination of Marsa Alam and will further bolster our profile as one of the key players in Egypt's hotel industry, while strengthening our position as first Hilton branded hotel in Marsa Alam, on the west coast of Egypt's Red Sea.


Expedia.com announced that it has eliminated all phone-based booking fees. Expedia.com will not charge phone booking fees for any flight, car rental, hotel or cruise reservation booked by phone (1-800-EXPEDIA). The change to Expedia.com's service policy is immediate. This is the latest example of the meaningful steps Expedia.com is taking to drive down the cost of travel and to put travellers first in everything the company does. Expedia.com is now the only major online travel agency to offer fee-free telephone booking for air travel. By comparison, some online travel agencies charge as much as $25 per ticket to book via phone. Many airlines also apply as much as $25 in fees, per ticket, to book by phone. The company eliminated online air booking fees and change fees and cancel fees on all hotel and car rental reservations in May 2009. Cruise change and cancel fees were also eliminated in May 2009 and cruise booking fees were eliminated in October 2009. "Expedia.com is proud to stand up for the rights of phone-using Americans," said Tim MacDonald, senior vice president and general manager, Expedia.com. "In recent years, travel fees - for baggage, gas, parking and the like - have had a tendency to rise in unexpected and unpleasant ways. Expedia.com has chosen to move in a different direction. We expect that this decision will be well received by the millions of travellers we serve."


Centara Hotels & Resorts intends to go full speed and acquire more properties to manage in addition to operating its own properties, following the success of its first managed hotel, the Centara Duangtawan Hotel Chiang Mai.The company says that it anticipates the proportion of its hotel management business and own-hotel business will change to 40:60 over the next five years from its present level of 20:80.  In the four years since the Centara Duangtawan has been under Centara management, the hotel's performance has exceeded anticipations. In September of this year, the hotel was awarded as a Wotif Group "Top Achiever" and "Top Producer" for outstanding performance through booking websites Wotif.com, AsiaWebDirect.com and LateStays.com. Last year the Centara Duangtawan was honoured with a Gold Award of Excellence from Asia Web Direct (AWD) for outstanding room night production, having been AWD's most significant business partner in Central and Northern Thailand over the previous 12 months. At the same time the hotel also received a Certificate of Merit from AWD for Outstanding Revenue Performance in the previous 12 months. Centara, which currently has 23 hotels and resorts in its portfolio, manages eight of the properties for other owners. The company directly owns nine of its properties, with another four owned through joint ventures. "We have a target for increasing our number of properties to 65 within the next five years," says Gerd Steeb, president of Centara Hotels & Resorts. "These will be both in Thailand and overseas, and will include a substantial number of managed properties.