Hotel News Now each week features a news roundup from a different region of the world. This week’s compilation covers Europe.

Debt finance in the United Kingdom has been readily available over the past decade and a half as interest rates barely rose above zero, but that landscape changed noticeably in 2022. For the past year and a half, interest rates have increased by 50 or so basis points a month in the U.K. as the country’s central bank has sought to slow down or reverse inflation, writes Hotel News Now's Terence Baker.

One hotel industry insider said debt now has become a global issue. Chris Sheppardson, managing director of magazine EP Business in Hospitality, said overall dent totals “$42.9 trillion, about twice what it was last year. The world has a major debt challenge, and companies will need to face this challenge. In the U.K., he said debt getting ready to mature totals more than £43 billion ($55 billion).

Glamping accommodations, once viewed as an alternative to hotels, are seeing recent injections of institutional and publicly listed capital, a scenario that is reminding many of the money that entered the hostel niche in 2014 and 2016. Glamping, which comes with average daily rates that rival those of traditional hotels, is especially popular in European countries such as Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Serbia and Switzerland.

The global glamping industry is set to reach a value of $5.94 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 10.9%, according to a February 2023 report from San Francisco-based market research firm Grand View Research. The report added the niche was valued at $2.35 billion in the last full year of revenue data for full-year 2021. Treehouses, a niche within glamping, are expected to reach a value of $363.6 million alone by 2028.

Accor anticipates continued growth throughout the rest of the year as executives raised their outlook for full-year revenue per available room growth to between 15% and 20%, according to Martine Gerow, the French hotel company’s group chief finance officer.

“It is a half year of solid growth momentum,” Gerow said. “Our [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] more than doubled.”

During the first half of 2023, Accor's consolidated EBITDA was €447 million ($495.5 million), up from €205 million during the same period in 2022. Accor's guidance for full-year consolidated EBITDA is between €930 million and €970 million.

Major wildfires have ravaged parts of the popular Greek island destination of Rhodes, including the areas around several hotels, which has forced hotel guests to evacuate and cancel travel plans. The destination is a warm-weather spot for many European vacationers, especially British travelers.

Thomas Ellerbeck, group executive committee member at hotel and vacation-package company TUI, said that on July 23: “TUI has around 39,000 guests on the island, 7,800 of them directly affected by the situation.” He added all guests had been relocated to safe places, including hotels or shelters designated by the local authorities.

Madrid-based real estate investment trust Azora has received a sizeable investment, approximately €270 million, from an unnamed sovereign wealth fund. With leverage considered, this would raise the implied investment capacity of its third stated fund to €500 million.

The Spanish REIT said its primary focus will be on acquiring assets, including hotels, in Southern Europe and said it has “the flexibility to consider investments of all risk levels from development to those requiring lower levels of repositioning, as well as opportunities arising out of the uncertain current market environment.”

• Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has signed a pre-development hotel management agreement with Samson House to open a 33-story building with a 171-room hotel and 70 branded residences on the south bank of the River Thames close to Blackfriars Bridge and the Tate Modern museum.
• Travelodge Hotels has opened its fourth hotel in Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk. Owned by the Burney Group, the 100-room Ipswich Central Travelodge is adjacent to Ipswich Town Football Club.
• Accor brand Mama Shelter has opened its 10th hotel in France and 18th in total with the 120-room Mama Dijon in Dijon, Burgundy. Among the hotel’s features is a 28-seat cinema.
• French luxury hotel operator and owner Maisons Pariente will debut its 61-room Le Grand Mazarin in Paris on Sept. 4.
• IHG Hotels & Resorts has announced the Voco Zeal Exeter Science Park in Exeter, England. It and its partner, owner Zeal Hotels, claim the 142-room hotel, due to open next year, will be “the first life cycle net-zero-carbon hotel for both businesses.”
• Motel One has opened the 234-room Motel One Würzburg in Würzburg, Germany. It is the German hotel firm’s 62nd hotel in Germany. It also has opened a hotel in Dublin.
• U.S. hotel firm 1 Hotels made its European debut in mid-July with the 181-room 1 Hotel Mayfair, London.
• Mett Hotels & Resorts on Aug. 1 opened its second resort, the 249-room Mett Hotel & Beach Resort Marbella-Estepona opening on the Spanish Costa del Sol coast.
• Munich-based Ruby Hotels has opened its 16th property in London, the 173-room Ruby Zoe in the British capital’s Notting Hill district.
• Swedish owner Pandox AB has bought the 202-room Hilton Belfast, Northern Ireland, from Starwood Capital Group for a reputed £40 million. Axion Hospitality manages the hotel.
• The 70-room Aparthotel Adagio Antwerp City Center has opened in the Belgian city, with ownership from Borealis Hotel Group and management from Aimbridge Hospitality EMEA.
• Irish family office Louis Fitzgerald Group has bought the 131-room Imperial Hotel in Cork, Ireland, for €25 million from peer family office The Flynn Group.
• Experimental Group has opened the 72-room Regina Experimental in Biarritz, France. Overlooking the Bay of Biscay, the hotel originally opened in 1907.
• Hotel firm One&Only has announced that its 95-room One&Only Aesthesis, in the Glyfada district of Athens, will open in October within a 21-hectare protected beach and forest reserve.
• IHG will debut its Hotel Indigo brand in Romania in 2025 with the opening of the 62-room Hotel Indigo Satu Mare in Satu Mare, a city close to both the Hungarian and Ukrainian borders.

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