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

Sébastien Bazin said the global lack of labor in the industry is “as bad as we feared. It is not getting better unless you accept to pay very high wages, which you cannot afford to do. We really have to think collectively, all industry players, trying to reassess.”

The president and CEO of Accor made his comments during an exclusive video-interview with Hotel News Now’s Terence Baker, in which he added he was full of energy for the future, with Accor having shifted 90% of its guest demand for its Rixos brand away from Russia and former Soviet countries to markets such as the U.K., U.S. and Benelux nations and signing an Orient Express hotel in Venice.

Despite European hotel performance lagging that of the U.S. by one quarter or more, what happens to hotel metrics in the continent across the next few months will likely be a bellwether for the global industry throughout the rest of 2022, said STR’s managing director Robin Rossmann, speaking at an STR webinar on May 13.

Numbers by press time likely will have improved from the date of the webinar, with Rossmann stating, “Europe will be the poster child of recovery over the next months. The most pleasing thing is not the recovery of weekend demand, which we have all seen, but the recovery of weekday demand, which is to about 10% of pre-pandemic levels.”

“There is absolutely no reason why in the coming month that will not come back up to what we see in the U.S., where it is 90% and 95%,” he said, adding Germany likely would be the last major market of Europe to bounce back as restrictions on that market were among the very last to be lifted in Europe.

The United Kingdom celebrated Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, the 70th anniversary of her coronation, with four days of celebrations, pageants, concerts, parades and tea parties, all of which were a boost for hoteliers across what was a long June 2-5 weekend of generally good weather, reports HNN’s Baker.

Torsten van Dullemen, general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, said his hotel illuminated its façade in regal purple and served locals and guests complimentary Jubilee ice cream and coronation treats, while Sam Goss, general manager of The Castle Hotel in Windsor, the town in which the Queen spends much of her time, said he had so far sold more than 3,000 Jubilee teas and that he expected the high level of interest to continue throughout the summer.

According to Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, the United Kingdom’s principal industry membership body, the challenge of securing staff in the hotel industry is nothing less than a “battle for bodies,” with her estimation of the amount the industry is losing because of a lack of employees totaling approximately 20 billion pounds sterling ($25.2 billion).

Nicholls, who said she is optimistic about the predicament, said she believed there is a realization in government circles as to the problem. Speaking at a press launch of UKHospitality’s new Hospitality Workforce Strategy, she said, “remember back to summer 2019, and everyone was struggling to recruit, and we were facing a people crisis. Vacancy levels are now double what they were then.”

Most U.S. travelers who have booked visits to Europe in 2022 still intend to visit and are not deterred by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a recent study by MMGY Travel Intelligence, whose findings showed 61% of those questioned are not changing their plans and 23% said they intended to wait and monitor how the war transpires before they commit to plans.

“While the war in Ukraine is clearly a top-of-mind concern for many travelers, it does not appear that it will ultimately deter most Americans from visiting Europe. This is especially true of travel to Western European destinations that are perceived to be a bit more geographically removed from the conflict,” said MMGY’s executive vice president, Chris Davidson.

• Hilton is set to debut in 2024 in San Sebastián, Spain, with the Palacio Bellas Artes Hotel San Sebastian, Curio Collection by Hilton, a franchise agreement with Sociedad Anónima Deportes y Espectáculos, S.A., a wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo SADE, which will manage the 82-room hotel;
  

• UK Commercial Property [Real Estate Investment Trust] has acquired a development project from Marrico LLP and Helio in Leeds, England, that will open in 2024 and be the site of two Hyatt Hotels Corporation assets in a 25-year lease operated by Interstate Hotels & Resorts. The two brands will be Hyatt Place and Hyatt House, with the REIT working with Leeds City Council in a commitment of 62.7 million pounds sterling ($78.28 million);
  
• Radisson Hotel Group has announced the debut of its Radisson Collection Hotel brand in Croatia with the 227-room Grand Hotel Brioni Pula, which has been transformed in a $37-million renovation from the Hotel Brioni by its master franchisee PPHE Hotel Group and PPHE’s Croatian subsidiary Arena Hospitality Group;
  
• Yotel is to open the 127-room Yotel Lisbon World Trade Center in 2024, a partnership with the center’s developer Foz Vintage Group. It will be the hotel firm’s second hotel in Portugal, following its May 2021, 150-room debut in Porto;
  
• Marriott International on June 1 opened the 134-room W Algarve on the southern Portuguese coast at Sesmarias, the brand’s debut in the country;
  
• Scandic Hotels opened the 100-room Scandic Nørreport in Copenhagen, its 29th property in Denmark;
  
• SH Hotels & Resorts and Starwood Capital Group are to open in early 2023 the Treehouse Manchester, the second asset from the Treehouse Hotels brand following its debut in London at the end of 2019;
• IHG Hotels & Resorts and owner HNH Hospitality have announced the second Voco hotel in Italy with the 128-room Voco Venice Mestre The Quid on the Italian mainland close to Venice Marco Polo Airport and opposite Venice itself;
  
• Leonardo Hotels is to debut in Manchester with the 275-room Leonardo Hotel Manchester Piccadilly, which the hotel firm says has a design reminiscent of the board game Jenga.
  

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