Month: September 2019

Posted on

Hyatt unveils plans for two Manchester hotels

Hyatt has announced plans to open two hotels in Manchester including the UK debut of its extended stay brand Hyatt House.

Hyatt Regency Manchester Oxford Road and Hyatt House Manchester Oxford Road will be located in the landmark “The Lume” building and both properties are expected to open in 2020.

The Hyatt Regency, the brand’s third UK hotel, will feature 212 rooms plus a restaurant, bar, club lounge, fitness centre and seven meeting rooms. While Hyatt House will offer 116 “apartment-style” living rooms.

The move will help to increase the number of Hyatt branded hotels in the UK up to 11 by 2022.

Felicity Black-Roberts, Hyatt’s vice president of development Europe, said: “Hyatt has been focused on growing its brand presence in the UK, and with Manchester being one of UK’s most important commercial centres, this is a milestone.

“Manchester is also a destination that is increasingly gaining popularity with leisure travellers. The location by the university will allow the Hyatt Regency and Hyatt House brands to capitalise on two very different, but important, market segments by allowing guests to choose the right setting for their needs.”

Competition in Manchester’s extended-stay hotel market is set to further hot up with Marriott’s announcement that it will be bringing its Residence Inn brand to the city next year.

Marriott is to rebrand and refurbish the existing Northern Quarters Serviced Apartments Manchester with the Residence Inn set to open in late 2020.

The 155-room hotel, which is located within walking distance of Manchester Piccadilly station, will offer a range of one and two-bedroom apartments with kitchen facilities.

During this phased refurbishment, the property will operate 84 serviced apartments under the Northern Quarters brand.

Posted on

London hotel inventory to increase by 41% in 2020

The London Convention Bureau says that 7,995 hotel rooms across 65 new hotels will open in 2020, adding to 158,956 existing rooms.

This figure has risen from 3,222 in 2010, an increase of 41%. 

Total additions to the London hotel market across 2019 and 2020 are expected to reach 121 hotels with 14,840 rooms, a record two-year period for increasing supply of hotel rooms. The range of unique and exciting new hotels will provide meetings, events and incentive planners with further choice for accommodation and meetings venues.

As London continues to attract high levels of leisure and business travellers, hotel operators are catering for all audiences of meetings and events planners. Of the 14,840 new rooms opening this year and next, 10% are 5-star grade, 31% 4-star and 26% are budget hotels.

Significant new global investment in hotels and venues has also contributed to London topping CVENT’s European Meeting Destination rankings for the fifth year in a row. The rankings report highlights London’s wide and eclectic range of hotels and venues, with the UK capital providing meeting and events planners with more choice than any other major European MICE destination.

Compared to other European cities, London ranked highly for its variety of restaurants (1,416), meeting hotels (1,012) and total convention centre space (2,109,000 square meters)2.

A number of North American hotel brands have recently opened up or announced plans for new properties in London, including The Standard which opened its first European hotel in the UK capital in July, joining the recently opened Hard Rock Hotel. The W London Leicester Square, by Marriot, has also undergone a major refurbishment with new in-room technology giving guests an immersive experience.

Later this year, the newly renovated Biltmore Hotel will reopen as the first hotel to join Hilton’s New Luxury Collection – LXR Hotels & Resorts. Japan’s Prince Hotels will also debut The Prince Akotoki later this month, its first European hotel based in London’s Marylebone and showcasing Japanese minimalism.

Looking ahead, Edwardian will open The Londoner, the world’s first super boutique hotel in London’s West End in 2020. The five-star hotel will have 350 rooms, two luxury cinemas and a state-of-the-art ballroom accommodating up to 864 guests. Pan Pacific Hotels Group’s first London footprint, Pan Pacific London, is set to open next year, featuring a 370-capacity ball room at One Bishopgate Plaza. Rosewood will also open a new luxury hotel on the site of the former US Embassy in Grosvenor Square by 2023.

Tracy Halliwell, director of conventions & major events at London Convention Bureau said: “London is a top global destination for leisure and business travellers, and we are delighted to see a record number of new hotels and rooms opening in the capital. We’ve seen a range of exciting and cutting-edge hotels open recently like The Hoxton Southwark, The Stratford and Bankside Hotel, and we look forward to the upcoming openings.” 

“London is a truly dynamic city with a range of new venues, hotels and experiences, offering event planners the opportunity to be innovative. We continue to see strong interest from the North American MICE market, with major corporates, associations and conference organisers committing to a whole range of events. London remains an open, diverse city and at IMEX America we look forward to speaking with event planners from all over the world to tell them about all the opportunities in our great city.” 

Posted on

Ruby Hotels announces first UK property

Munich-based Ruby Hotels is set to open its first property in the UK in January 2020 with the launch of a hotel in London’s Southbank.

The new 76-room hotel, Ruby Lucy, forms part of the company’s plan to open 11 new properties – including a second in London, in Clerkenwell – by 2022.

Located within walking distance of Waterloo train station, the hotel will feature a “carnival” theme inspired by Southbank’s fairs, markets and theatre scene. It will offer a 24-hour bar, communal work station and a library.

A communal space will serve breakfast without the need for a kitchen or chef, and rather than in-room minibars and room service, the hotel will feature galley kitchens, vending machines and ironing stations.

Guest rooms at Ruby Lucy will range in size from ‘Nest’ rooms (14-15sqm) to ‘Loft’ rooms (21-23sqm) and will be equipped with Ruby Hotels’ signature soundproofing, blackout curtains, linen and extra-long and wide custom mattresses.

They will also feature a Marshall amp, which guests can use with their own guitar or one borrowed from hotel reception, as well as a personal tablet computer pre-loaded with Ruby Hotels’ curated London city guide and social media apps.

According to the company, its hotels offer what it calls ‘lean luxury’, with choice locations and high-quality fittings at affordable prices.

Michael Struck, founder and CEO of Ruby Hotels, commented: “This works because we accommodate luxury in a relatively condensed space, similar to luxury yachts, and we forego unnecessary services. Thanks to proprietary technical innovations, we plan, build and organise ourselves differently from conventional hotels. To be precise, we plan and build in a very modular way and centralise as well as [automate] processes behind the scenes wherever possible. This helps us create a luxurious and unique hotel experience at an affordable price.”

Ruby Hotels currently operates three properties in Vienna, one in Munich (pictured), two in Dusseldorf and one in Hamburg. The company plans to open new locations in Zurich, Helsinki, Cologne, Frankfurt and Shanghai by the end of 2020.

Posted on

2019 UK Hotel Development Opportunities

More than £1.1b was invested in UK hotel development projects in 2018, driven by increased investor confidence and an appetite for long term secure income.

That’s according to Knight Frank’s annual UK Hotel Development Opportunities 2019 report, which said that London attracted 60% of investment volumes. Supply is set to increase by 4.2% in 2019, constituting 38% of the total UK pipeline.

The UK hotel sector opened 15,500 new hotel rooms in 2018, marking a 2.4% increase in supply. The growth trend is expected to continue in 2019 with a further 19,300 rooms forecast to open this year, up 2.9%.

The reported also revealed a shift in the composition of new room supply. New build hotel room development made up the bulk of new supply in 2018.

But hotel conversion – which accounted for 34% of new bedroom stock – increased by 42% year-on-year as developers capitalised on increased vacancy rates from other asset classes considered suitable for hotel conversion.

For the full year 2019, the proportion of hotel of conversions is expected to be around 20% of new supply, while asset management programmes – such as hotel extensions and refurbishments – will constitute a further 17% of new supply.

The majority of construction projects are expected to continue focusing on new build hotel rooms, making up 63% of the new supply.

Budget hotels continue to dominate the market, with 7,500 new rooms expected to open by the end of 2019, up 5% year-on-year. But market share remains on a downward trend as the growing trend for lifestyle hotels continues to drive both branded and independent mid- and up-scale hotels.

The report forecasts that the budget sector’s market share of new hotel room supply will be 39% for the full year forecast 2019, down from 49% in 2016.

Shaun Roy, head of hotels at Knight Frank, said: “The hotel sector is undergoing robust levels of development activity, despite the continued uncertainty that Brexit brings. This is occurring both in London and the UK more generally and is particularly evident in those markets which have a diverse business mix, with a thriving leisure market such as Edinburgh, Birmingham and Brighton.

“There are clear opportunities for investors in the hotel sector nationwide at the development stage, which presents a long-term strategy providing a guaranteed stream of secure income.”

The Knight Frank UK Hotel Development Index named Edinburgh, London, Brighton, York and Birmingham as the UK’s top five most attractive cities for hotel investment and development.

The full report can be found here.

Posted on

HotStats: European hotel rates down 5 per cent in July

Mainland Europe hotels saw a 5 per cent decline in average room rate to €170.60 in July, according to data from HotStats.

Gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR) was down by 9.4 per cent year on year. In addition to being the sixth month of year-on-year GOPPAR decrease in the region since the beginning of 2019, it was also one of the greatest months of profit decline this year.

“The drop in average room rate is disconcerting,” said Michael Grove, managing director, EMEA, at HotStats. “Especially since it’s the second consecutive month that rate has dropped year on year, after positive rate growth in the subsequent five months of the year and all of 2018.”

For hotels in Moscow, it was a case of hotel rates returning to normal levels after last year’s 2018 FIFA Men’s World Cup, as average room rate fell by €157.06 year on year to €92.86. However, hotels in the Russian capital did successfully record the highest room occupancy of the year so far, at 87.9 per cent.

In contrast to the regional falls in room rate, hotels in Nice saw a typical summer increase as room occupancy hit 90.2 per cent and a high was recorded in average room rate at €267.92.

Elsewhere in the world, hotel rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) fell to €119.19 with occupancy at 67 per cent. Hotels in Dubai were among those experiencing the biggest falls, with average rates seeing a 10.3 per cent decrease year-on-year.

“Profit decline in MENA has now become a trend rather than a blip,” said Grove. “With average room rate showing no sign of negative year-over-year letup, hoteliers will have to find cost-cutting measures to obtain positive GOPPAR increases in the interim.”

It was a different story across the pond, where hotels in the US saw a 0.9 per cent rise in average room rate to $201.51 and a 0.6 percentage point jump in occupancy to 81.1 per cent.

“Hotels in the US are bucking global profit trends, with only three months over the last 22 when GOPPAR turned negative,” said David Eisen, director of hotel intelligence, Americas, at HotStats. “Operators are doing an admirable job of making sure top-line gains result in bottom-line success, but they will need to continue to drive flow through in order to maintain and keep these gains afloat.”

Posted on

The Hilton Munich City completes refurbishment

Hilton Munich City is completing refurbishment of the public areas, guest rooms, fitness centre, bar, restaurant and meeting facilities which will transform this 4* hotel.

The location of this hotel is in the city centre, in 10-minutes walking distance of the major attractions. It is above the Rosenheimer Platz S-Bahn station with a lift to the Lobby, which has a direct connection to the airport, convention centre and main railway station. The airport transfer takes about 30 minutes (35km).

There are nine meeting rooms. The largest is the ballroom which has capacity for 300 in theatre-style with a large foyer and courtyard, as well as seven seven multi-purpose rooms and a boardroom. All meeting rooms are located on the ground floor.

The Hilton Munich City has 483 bedrooms and suites and there is an Executive Lounge with terrace. In addition, facilities include a 24-hour gym, the Juliet Rose Bar and Mona Restaurant.

This hotel was awarded Germany’s Leading City Hotel 2019 at the World Travel Awards Europe 2019.

Posted on

Ideas to make sure attendees get the most out of your events

We all know that planning is the key to a successful conference, meeting or event. So how do you plan to make sure delegates get the best out of your events?

The German Convention Bureau has identified five elements to improve the delegate experience. We explore them, here.

Get the most out of your events:

1. Networking

Research has shown that networking is an important reason for attending an event. Event organisers should plan enough time for everyone to have the opportunity to meet and introduce themselves.

There are plenty of things organisers can do to facilitate networking. There are matchmaking systems to connect people before the event has begun. At the event, icebreakers can start communication and get people familiar with each other. Or interactive displays will create a reaction and get people talking.

2. Sharing Knowledge and Information

Another top reason for attending an event is to have access to new and exciting information. For many events, attendee satisfaction depends on the quality of content. The content must deliver new knowledge, improve understanding, and attendees need to be able to use it when they are back in the office. The information must have the power to motivate them or change their behaviour.

Speakers must be able to discuss a topic thoroughly and be engaging so the audience listen and take in what they say. They must also be able to answer questions, so, they should be very knowledgeable in their chosen topic. Think about the formats of sessions. Can some be interactive, or can a session be delivered by attendees working in small groups?

3. Disruption

Events that surprise and create change can positively impact both individuals and organisations. First-hand experience is important, and to introduce something different can create a lasting memory and sense of community.

Event organisers should consider building in an element that ties in with their organisation’s CSR policy, such as a meditation session, an inspiring speaker, creating artwork or a team-building exercise. This element needs to have a purpose but it can introduce attendees to something unusual and change their mindset.

4. Technology

Everyone expects technology to be at the forefront of the event. While it’s nice to introduce some innovative elements, they must be meaningful. There are apps and software to facilitate interaction between attendees and speakers, and using technology to engage delegates will create more interaction. Elements such as live streaming, virtual reality, specialist apps, and so on can elevate an event to the next level.

Organisers should consider whether it would be possible to mix digital and real-life options for people to interact with each other, while remembering that different personality types (more or less introvert or extrovert) have different ways of communicating.

5. Satisfaction

The main overall aim is that the attendees are happy with the event. They will have had different reasons for being there, and if they leave having achieved their goal, they will be satisfied. If they have gone to learn something new, made new contacts, and met their goals, they will deem it a successful event and hopefully attend again.

There is many aspects to remember when organising an event which contribute to the overall success. However, the most important factor to consider is the clients’ and delegates’ satisfaction. If they are happy, it was a successful event!

Need help planning your next event? Try our very own Trinity Event Solutions

Posted on

Expoforum welcomes €700,000 subvention fund to support St Petersburg’s international growth

St Petersburg is doubling its subvention fund to 50 million Roubles (approximately €700,000) for 2019 as part of its ongoing strategy to attract major international congresses to the city.

Although the fund is available for use across all the city’s venues, it will have a significant, positive impact on Expoforum, which the city’s primary congress venue, capable of hosting up to 4,000 delegates in its main conference halls in addition to its 50,000m2 of indoor exhibition space.

The fund, which is controlled by St Petersburg Government and the St Petersburg Committee for Tourism Development will be available to socially oriented non-profit organisations, which are stimulating business tourism and events in St Petersburg.

Subvention support will be granted as part of a competitive process, which will reimburse up to 50% of the costs of an event (up to 10 million Roubles). Key criteria to achieve subvention support include:

  • Number of international participants
  • Event duration
  • Event dates
  • Potential for domestic and international media reach
  • Alignment of the event with the development priorities in the St Petersburg Strategy for Economic and Social Development

“Expoforum is growing its presence internationally, with a variety of major events confirmed over the coming five years,” comments Maria Tsedeviyn, International Development Director at Expoforum. “However, this comprehensive subvention strategy ensures we are competitive on the global stage. With upcoming enhancements to the city’s ambassador programme and plans to simplify the visa process we are looking forward to significant growth in events from a wide variety of sectors. Whilst the fund will benefit St Petersburg as a whole, the Expoforum team are particularly looking forward to the impact it will have on us in our position as the city’s primary venue for major events.”

Andrey Matsarin, Head of St Petersburg Convention Bureau adds: “St Petersburg has firmly established its presence in the global congress market. Our rich history and cultural offering blend perfectly with top universities, research centres and sector leading companies to make our city the perfect host for a wide variety of association events. Our accessibility is superb as is our ability to deliver major events – as demonstrated by our work around the FIFA World Cup and the St Petersburg International Economic Forum at Expoforum, which welcomes tens of thousands of delegates to the city each year.”

The subvention application process has also been simplified with support available from the Convention Bureau as well as local consultants to ensure associations maximise their chances of financial support.