Orca Holdings, a Barcelona-based hospitality investor owned by Laith Pharaon, has bought for an undisclosed price The Zetter Group, which has three boutique properties in London, according to a news release from business advisory Savills, which brokered the deal.

Michael Benyan and Mark Sainsbury founded Zetter 18 years ago. The deal includes all three of Zetter's assets. Pharaon, who plans to expand the brand to European gateway cities such as Amsterdam, Madrid and Paris, said he sees “huge growth and development potential in The Zetter Group."

"This has been a difficult year for most hotels but the properties were previously achieving great success in their respective segments," Pharaon said.

Orca’s hotel assets include the Amari Havodda in The Maldives and Soho House Barcelona, Spain.

The world’s largest hotel firm, Marriott International, announced it will provide a financial award to U.S. and Canadian employees at its managed properties who get vaccinated for COVID-19, according to a news release. Employees will receive the equivalent of four hours of pay upon completion of the vaccination.

According to the Financial Times, French hotel giant Accor last week announced it would secure sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccinations for all its staff to be vaccinated by the end of the summer. Legal concerns about making vaccinations mandatory have been voiced on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has broken ground on its new dual-brand offering of assets combining a La Quinta hotel and a Hawthorn Suites hotel in Pflugerville, Texas, according to a news release.

The firm said the dual-branded offering “enables owners to target both the business transient and extended-stay demand.”

It has 36 such assets in its pipeline, including hotels in El Paso, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; Wichita, Kansas; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The London police force, the Metropolitan Police, has passed the 1 billion pounds sterling ($1.4 billion) mark in sales of its former police stations and magistrates' courts to private developers, and hoteliers have taken full advantage. Many of these buildings have been deemed no longer fit for purpose, but they are ideal for hotels, writes Hotel News Now’s Terence Baker.

Examples include the Snow Hill Police Station, which Whitbread PLC has bought for an upcoming 220-room Hub by Premier Inn and Bow Street Police Station & Magistrates’ Court, probably the most famous police station in the United Kingdom, which has been bought by Qatari investment firm Business Trading Co. for a 100-room NoMad Hotel due to open later this year.

In its continuing weekly survey of 1,200 U.S. travelers, Destination Analysts has reported that Americans are becoming more confident that the end of the COVID-19 road is nearing but are still not putting that confidence into action, with only 12.4% of them saying they have a spring break trip planned.

Within that percentage, half said they plan to fly on that spring break trip to a destination more than 500 miles from home. More than two-thirds said they will experience a new destination for this trip. Beaches, rural areas and national parks are proving the destinations of choice, and the survey added “luxury hotels appear to be the most common lodging option for these spring break travelers.”

Compiled by Terence Baker.