Best Holiday Lettings

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  • Nearly 25% of UK families forgo holidays due to the money worries

    With the Easter holidays rapidly approaching, Kleeneze research shows that austere times continue to bite, with over a fifth (22%) people admitting to forgoing a family holiday so as to fund everyday necessities.

    Families feel the impact…

    Over 1/2 families within the survey who had missed out on holidays (51%) said it were difficult and caused disappointment and one in ten (10%) said it had ended in family arguments.

    Perhaps more surprisingly, almost one in five (17%) admitted to having to pay for other treats to make up for it, potentially resulting in a false economy partly.

    Finding a solution…

    Rather than cancel family holidays, over a 3rd people (34%) said we had taken specific steps to prevent having to try this.

    The most appropriate solutions to the difficulty were to scale back on other non-essential spending (64%), working extra hours or taking up an element time job (59%), counting on others equivalent to parents or grandparents to hide the price (19%) or sharing with other families to bring the price down (19%).

    Commenting at the result of the research, Lisa Burke, sales director of Kleeneze, said: “It’s clear many families are having to work harder to balance the household finances – pay freezes, reduced hours and sadly redundancies are all having a major effect.

    “Because Kleeneze distributors are self-employed and might work the hours they wish, we continue to work out a serious choice of new recruits who sell Kleeneze products as a second job on top of existing full-time employment.  Often, the cause of joining is as a way to continue to afford the life-style that they had previous to these more austere times.”

    The regional picture…

    The Kleeneze research revealed that those in Northern Ireland were in all likelihood to have forgone a vacation with a 3rd (33%) indicating that they had – next it was those within the North West (25%) and people within the East Midlands (24%).

  • Westin Hotels to open 200th hotel in 2013

    Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide announced that its Westin brand expects to open its 200th hotel in 2013, driven by robust international demand and the exceptional success of the brand’s distinct wellbeing positioning. Westin will open 11 new hotels this year, the overwhelming majority outside the u. s. in fast-growing markets including China, India, Singapore and Panama.

    In line with global growth trends, the Westin brand is experiencing a surge in new hotel openings across Asia Pacific. Seven new Westin hotels will open in Asia Pacific in 2013, increasing the brand’s portfolio to almost 50 hotels within the region by year’s end. Fuelling the brand’s growth inside the region is the rapid economic growth in China’s second and third-tier cities. New Westin hotel openings in China this year include The Westin Haikou, The Westin Sanya Haitang Bay Resort, The Westin Chongqing Liberation Square and The Westin Qingdao.  Westin may even make its return to Singapore with the outlet of The Westin Singapore Marina Bay in late 2013.

    Demand for brand new Westin hotels in Latin America is likewise heating up. In exactly the past 18 months, Westin has grown its footprint in Latin America by nearly 50% as portion of the brand’s strategic expansion within the region’s fastest growing markets. This year’s opening of The Westin Panama increases the Westin portfolio in Latin America to 11 hotels, spanning five countries including Panama, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

    In North America, the Westin brand will add four new hotels to its portfolio this year.  As well as the hole of The Westin Birmingham, Westin may be attracting a growing share of conversion opportunities in cities around the USA, with The Westin Houston Downtown, The Westin Sacramento and The Westin San Jose all opening in 2013, following renovations.

  • News: Vayant’s Pricing Cache brings even greater flexiblity to travel sellers

    Vayant Travel Technologies, a global leader in B2B airfare search innovation, today announced the launch of the most recent version of Pricing Cache, its cache export solution for Online Travel Agents (OTAs), Tour Opertors (TOs) and Airlines.

    Announced at the eve of Vayant’s attendance at ITB Berlin 2013, Pricing Cache V2.0 makes Vayant’s custom cache solution much more flexible. Travel retailers be capable of fine tune their customer’s travel shopping experience through a comprehensive set of parameters that consistently deliver accurate air search results.

    Pricing Cache can support any market cache on a global-wide basis, corresponding to market-driven cache, country, cross-country and continent-scale cache.

    New features of Pricing Cache V2.0 include for every origin and destination combination support for multiple passenger types and different fare classes in one cache. Travel retailers may also specify maximum connection times, airports, airlines, routes, and define the number and sort of search leads to their respective cache.

    Pricing Cache’s unique and proven technology now enables updates as much as 24 times an afternoon.  The power to refresh the cache in the course of the day means travel retailers enjoy the cost effectiveness of caching without compromising on accuracy.  The answer delivers, on average, 75 per cent or greater bookability (versus a maximum of 40 to 60 per cent for rival offers).

    Boyan Manev, Director Business Development and Product Marketing at Vayant, said: “We are constantly working to complement our solutions and stay sooner than the contest. We must ensure travel retailers have fast, cost-effective the way to provide their customers with essentially the mostsome of the most relevant offers available. With Pricing Cache V2.0, travel retailers can define go searching their customer’s needs more tightly than ever before.  All of it adds as much as a wiser customer experience.”

    First launched in July 2012, Vayant Pricing Cache is getting used by travel retailers including Hotelplan, travel.at, HLX and Binoli.

  • News: Hotel pipeline growth in Africa accelerates

    Research by W Hospitality Group, the award-winning consultancy and among the many founding members of Hotel Partners Africa (HPA), reveals that the variety of planned new hotel rooms within the Hotel Development Pipeline in Africa has increased by 16 per cent on last year, which was 12 per cent up on 2011.  It’s in accordance with a sample of 29 international hotel chains, with 59 brands between them, and analyses deals that they’ve signed with owners.

    As in previous years, the detail behind the headline shows a different tale of 2 Africas. In North Africa, the event pipeline grew by 9 per cent, from 17,217 planned new hotelrooms in 2012 to 18,782 rooms in 77 hotels in 2013.  In sub-Saharan Africa, however, the chains’ pipeline now stands at 21,052 rooms in 130 hotels, up from 17,109 rooms in 100 hotels a year ago – an immense 23 per cent increase.  This compares to 4 per cent growth in Europe and eight.6 per cent growth in Asia Pacific, in line with data produced by STR Global (although the expansion in Africa is from a far lower base).

    Trevor Ward, Managing Director of W Hospitality Group said: “The main reasons for the slower growth in North Africa include the outlet of hotels within the 2012 pipeline, particularly in Algeria, a discounted investment specialise in North Africa because of political concerns and a better emphasis on development in sub-Saharan markets.

    “There is a boom in Africa, in all sectors, including hotels.  Economic growth in lots of countries is 6 per cent or higher and global investors are the continent in a far more serious and complex way.  We’re being contacted by a growing number of dedicated investment funds looking to enter the African hotel market.”

    The five countries of North Africa all appear within the top ten countries for brand new hotels, led by Egypt (7,644 planned new hotel rooms), Morocco (5,178) and Algeria (3,160).  In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has by far the most important pipeline, with 7,470 planned new rooms.  The firms leading the way in which are Hilton Worldwide with 6,230 rooms in its African pipeline, Carlson Rezidor with 5,947, Accor with 5,165 and Marriott with 3,900.

    Said Ward: “The major international brands are still blazing the path, led by Hilton Worldwide, forging ahead with 6,230 planned new rooms for Hilton, Doubletree and Garden Inn brands, a rare 84% increase on 2012.  And it is very encouraging to determine new brands entering the market, including Campanile, Dusit, easyHotel, Fairmont, Hyatt Place and W.  This shows the boldness of the hotel chains not only inside the continent conceptually, but additionally as somewhere where they are able to diversify their brand footprint.”

    W Hospitality Group and Hotel Partners Africa released the report on the official launch of HPA to spotlight its deep understanding of the hotel sector in Africa.  HPA is a brand new consultancy formed by four pre-eminent consultants to the hotel industry in Africa – Trevor Ward and Vernon Page of Lagos-based W Hospitality Group, David Harper of Leisure Property Services (UK) and Mark Martinovic of Hotel Spec (South Africa and Dubai).  Together they’re offering their clients an unparalleled range of services through the lifecycle of a hotel venture in Africa, from feasibility & market studies, valuations,sourcing funding & finance, development management and procurement, to asset management and sales.

  • Brazil’s business travel spend to peer double digit growth

    The Global Business Travel Association (“GBTA”), the world’s premier business travel and company meetings organisation, has released its latest GBTA BTI™ Outlook report on Brazil as portion of its semiannual series.  Sponsored by Visa, key highlights include:

    *  GBTA BTI™ indicates that strengthening domestic and global economies will place Brazil on a robust growth path in 2013, with the index increasing by over 40 points
    *  Brazilian total business travel spending is predicted to grow 14.3% in 2013 to $34.5 billion
    *  Domestic business travel spending has grown 8.3% a year over the past 12 years, and is forecast to grow 12.9% to $27 billion in 2013
    *  International outbound travel spending is on course to expand by 20.2% in 2013, reaching $7.1 billion
    *  Demand for hotel rooms and air travel have been strengthening from both domestic and international outbound travelers; however there’s an increasingly large gap in supply

    Brazil currently ranks 8th within the business travel global rankings, and is on the right track to surpass Italy, France and the united kingdom over the following two years

    Wellington Costa, President of GBTA Brazil commented: “Brazil has shown remarkable economic resilience and we see this reflected inside the latest GBTA business travel data. Although business travel spending slowed toward the tip of 2012, growth rates for both travel spend and the economy are actually rising again. The foremost challenge facing the Brazilian business travel market is whether or not the country’s travel infrastructure and provide can keep pace with its growing demand.” 

    “Brazil remains to be a bright spot globally in terms of travel, with both domestic and international travel spending continuing to determine strong growth,” said Diego Rodríguez, Head of business Solutions, Visa Inc. Latin America and Caribbean. “According to the findings, Brazilian business travelers will surpass Italy, France and the united kingdom over a higher two years, because it continues rapid economic growth and development. With events akin to the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games helping fuel both business and tourism travel, Visa is committed to helping Brazil maximize their economic potential with electronic payment infrastructure.”

    While it seems that the present economy is weighing at the minds of travelers, for the primary 1/2 this year, we saw U.S. and international travelers increasing their spend on Visa accounts,” said Tad Fordyce, head of world commercial solutions at Visa Inc. “From January to June of 2012, international travelers increased travel spend on their Visa accounts by nine percent inside the U.S. to $20.1 billion. U.S. travelers were also active for the primary six months, increasing travel spend on their Visa accounts by seven percent to $17 billion. 2012 has the power to be the year of the traveler if we will continue this momentum of commercial and leisure travel.”

    The route to growth
    Despite the recessionary years of 2008 and 2009, Brazil’s business travel spending has continued to grow at a formidable rate, and has nearly tripled since 2000. From an estimated $11 billion in 2000 travel spend expanded at a regular rate of 8% per year to over $30 billion in 2012.

    In 2013 growth rates are expected to come to double digit figures, boosted by upward trends in key economic indicators – particularly business confidence and employment – both highly correlated with business travel spend. Business travel spending is forecast to extend by 14.3% to $34.5 billion in 2013.  This growth momentum will continue, with total business travel spending forecast to grow another 16.1% to $40 billion in 2014. 

    Moving up the sector rankings
    Brazil’s business travel industry have been performing strongly in comparison to other developed markets. Brazil is currently ranked 8th on earth, up one place from 2011. With current growth rates, Brazil is forecast to continue its rise during the rankings as a huge business travel market, overtaking Italy, France and the united kingdom over the subsequent two years. 

    Challenges ahead
    The forecast for Brazil is positive; however there are challenges which needs to be addressed if the business travel market is to achieve its full potential. The demand for hotel rooms and air travel have been strengthening from both domestic and international inbound travelers, and is about to extend over the following couple of years within the run-as much as the sector Cup and Olympics. The major challenge could be whether this demand can also be met going forward. Currently the provision of hotel rooms and air travel remains constrained, and the way through which that’s addressed will impact the ongoing growth of the business travel market in Brazil.