Read the latest hotel industry news from around Europe.

The United Kingdom government delivered its first budget designed to move the country out of the pandemic crisis, but hoteliers were mostly cautious in praise of the new measures introduced by chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak. Hoteliers were most upset at there being no mention of keeping value-added taxes on hotel rooms and other hospitality services at their COVID-19 level of 12.5%. Instead, value-added taxes will return to 20%, which hoteliers claim puts the U.K. hotel industry at an unfair advantage.

Hoteliers saw better news in the announcement that business rates will be discounted for the next 12 months and reviewed as a start to potentially overhauling their structure. Sunak told Parliament that “any eligible business can claim a discount on their bills of 50%, up to a maximum of 110,000 pounds sterling ($147,731). That is a business tax cut worth almost 1.7 billion pounds [sterling].”

Dutch hotel firm CitizenM has raised approximately $1 billion in new funds from existing investors, including Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and Dutch pension fund manager APG Asset Management.

More than 50% of the money raised will be directly invested in new hotels.

As international borders start to reopen, Accor executives have said they have even seen some business and group business returning, along with evident, recent increases in leisure business, writes Hotel News Now’s Terence Baker. In the third quarter, Accor's revenue totaled 589 million euros ($670.5 million), a 79% like-for-like increase over the same period in 2020 but a 40% decrease on that of the same period in 2019.

Jean-Jacques Morin, Accor's CFO and deputy CEO, said there have been improvements in other aspects of the business, stating “[Accor] improved earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization sensitivity per point of revenue per available room target to below 17 million euros versus 2019, from slightly below 18 million euros previously, and our monthly cash-burn target fell to less than 35 million euros, versus 40 million euros previously.”

Three premium hotels have opened or reopened in London in the last few months, with their owners and hoteliers placing a great deal of capital and experience in the return of London as one of the world’s business and leisure hubs. On June 1, the 186-room Carlton Tower Jumeirah opened, the same month as the 237-room Pan Pacific London and three months before 350-room The Londoner.

For the Carlton Tower Jumeriah, its renovation and reopening is the completion of a circle, for when it first opened in 1961 it was the first tower hotel in the city. Aaron Kaupp, Jumeirah's regional vice president, Northern Europe, and general manager of the Carlton Tower Jumeirah, said “London will always be a market that is driven 365 days a year between the corporate traveler, the leisure traveler and the group traveler, so I am confident that once travel will come back, London will be one of the first European markets to really rebound.”

• IHG Hotels & Resorts has announced a management agreement to open the first Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants property in the Hungarian capital Budapest in early 2025. In a deal with owner Mam Buda Project Kft., a subsidiary of Market Asset Management Zrt., the asset will have 127 rooms.
  
• Irish hotel firm Dalata has signed an agreement to open the 260-room Maldron Hotel Liverpool. The property will open at the end of 2023 and with a price tag of 37.5 million pounds sterling. The owners are Valorem Investment Partners and Aviva Investors, with development being undertaken by McAleer & Rushe.
  
• Accor has announced it will open the 130-room Mama Shelter Lisbon in January.
  
• Stoneweg Hospitality and Bain Capital Credit have announced that the Andalucia Plaza Hotel the joint venture bought in June 2021 in Marbella, Spain, will be renovated and rebranded as a 384-room Hard Rock Hotel due to open in June next year.
  
• London City Airport, close to the ExCeL Convention Centre, will have Central London’s first Courtyard by Marriott, an 184-room property that will be operated by Cycas Hospitality and opened on Nov. 8.
  
• The 340-room Canopy by Hilton London City, owned by 4C Hotel Group, opened on Oct. 20, the first for the brand in the United Kingdom.
  
• German hotel group Ruby Hotels on Oct. 18 opened its first hotel in Switzerland, the 208-room Ruby Mimi.
  
• The Villa Passalacqua in the Italian village of Moltrasio, adjacent to Lake Como, is being transformed from a private home into a 24-suite hotel by the De Santis family and which will open in June 2022. The family owns the 90-room Hotel Grand Tremezzo, which sits right on the lake.

Compiled by Terence Baker.

Return to the Hotel News Now home page