Vienna-based developer JP Hospitality has launched a new brand in Pan Am Hotel with a development focus on airport hotels both in Europe and internationally.
JP Hospitality announced the brand this week in Munich at real estate trade show and convention Expo Real. The company said in a news release that it plans to recreate the “golden age of travel” and the return of “premium lifestyle to the world of airport hotels.” The move also sees JP’s debut as hotel operator and brand creator.
No official hotel projects have been announced as part of the Pan Am Hotel brand launch, but JP Hospitality hopes to open the first hotel affiliated with the brand in Europe by 2028. Destinations under consideration in Europe include Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Geneva, Lisbon, London, Oslo, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris, Stockholm and Vienna. Outside of Europe, hotel projects are under consideration in Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Miami, Montreal, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, Jakarta, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo.
Gebhard Schachermayer, CEO of PNMB Brand GmbH and managing partner of JP Hospitality, which is a division of JP Immobilien, said in a news release that airport passenger growth globally is predicted to rise 3.6% annually through 2030, and a new raft of new airports are expected in China and India and across Africa.
The Pan Am Hotel brand plans to focus on an even mix of business and leisure travelers and include both new-build and conversion hospitality properties. Hotels would contain between 150 and 300 rooms and would include “daytime sleeperettes” or pod-rooms that can be booked for non-overnight airport stopovers.
The hotels’ design points would be “mid-century Modernist warmth and iconic circular,” Schachermayer said. Hotels would also feature 24-hour food-and-beverage services that utilize robots.
The style of the Pan Am Hotel brand is inspired from Pan Am Airlines — formerly Pan American World Airways — one of the foremost U.S. airlines in the 20th century. The airline designed the Worldport Pan Am Terminal 3 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, which was in operation between 1960 and 2013 and whose final tenant was Delta Air Lines.
Pan Am does have a history in the hotel business. In 1946, Pan American World Airways created the InterContinental hotel brand, opening the first InterContinental hotel in Brazil in 1949. In 1981, the airline sold its InterContinental hotels division, and today the brand is part of IHG Hotels & Resorts. JP Hospitality's Pan Am Hotels brand is unaffiliated with IHG.
JP Hospitality currently has a portfolio of 18 hotels and 5,610 rooms under 15 international brands and marketed under the flag of the JP Hotel Collection, with properties in Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Currently, the company is working to convert the Hotel Antares in Zermatt, Switzerland, into the Bikini Island & Mountain Resort, which will be a sibling to a property of the same name in Mallorca. Also in the works is the conversion of the residential Palazzo Compartimentale into a 159-room hotel, the Palazzo Vittorio Veneto in Trieste, Italy.
Founded in 1996 by Daniel Jelitzka and Reza Akhavan, JP Immobilien has developed more than 560 projects.