Best Holiday Lettings

Category: News

  • Hilton continues Egypt growth

    Hilton Worldwide is adding to its programme of growth in Egypt following a massive joint announcement with prominent investor, Saudi Egyptian Real Estate Development, to introduce the company’s sixth property to Cairo.

    The 257-room Hilton Cairo Nile Maadi may be strategically located inside the upscale residential and diplomatic district of Maadi and revel in direct access to the favored Corniche El Nile. The 23-storey property, that is forecast to open early 2016, may also boast views of the legendary River Nile in addition to Egypt’s world famous ancient heritage sites, museums and popular tourist attractions.

    Rudi Jagersbacher, president, Hilton Worldwide, Middle East & Africa said: “As the longest serving and most recognised hospitality brand in Egypt, we’re committed to offering tangible and sustainable hospitality to the country’s business and leisure industry.

    “Our Egyptian expansion strategy and determined pipeline growth reflects our unwavering faith within the viability of Egypt, it’s people, business and community as we continue the tradition of providing hospitality and luxury to discerning travellers.” Jagersbacher added.

    Designed to entice both the leisure and business traveller, Hilton Cairo Nile Maadi will feature a business centre, a 400-square-metre function room, two boardrooms and 3 meeting rooms. Leisure facilities will include a massive cutting-edge gymnasium and spa, an outside swimming pool, two restaurants, including speciality dining, a lobby lounge and an executive lounge.

    Rob Palleschi, global head, Hilton Hotels & Resorts said: “Hilton Hotels & Resorts is immensely pleased with its heritage and primary class reputation in Egypt and we’re delighted to bring another quality property to our growing portfolio of excellence.”

    Hilton Cairo Nile Maadi is a noteworthy addition to Hilton Worldwide’s growing development programme for Egypt and joins a property pipeline inclusive of the 635-room Hilton Heliopolis; the 660-room Hilton Makadi Resort; the 390-room Hilton Giza Pyramids and for Egypt’s second city of Alexandria, the 158-room Hilton Alexandria Corniche and the 195-room Hilton King’s Ranch Resort.

    As the pre-eminent hospitality provider, Hilton Worldwide’s properties in Egypt incorporate many styles and offerings but all share the well-defined, distinctive company hallmarks of high quality facilities and high standards of service. A favorite portfolio, Hilton Worldwide properties offer urban luxury and class in cities equivalent to Cairo and Alexandria to stunning resorts and spas in relaxing holiday areas of Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh, Taba, Nuweiba, Marsa Alam in addition to the traditional city of Luxor.

    Engineer Darwish Ahmed Hassnin, Chief Executive Officer from owners Saudi Egyptian Real Estate Development said: “Hilton Worldwide is a recognised hospitality leader with extensive knowledge and experience of Egypt.

    “Together, we’re committed to making a global-class property with outstanding and welcoming facilities and repair.

    “This property is the primary hotel in Egypt owned by both the Egyptian and Saudi governments and is anticipated to become among the flagships of the joint investments between both countries.” Hassnin concluded.

  • News: IHIF: Akkeron signs UK treat Choice Hotels

    Choice Hotels International has announced a strategic relationship with Akkeron Hotels Group, a well-known regional hotel operator within the Uk.

    The deal will initially lead to nine Akkeron hotels operating under Choice Hotels franchise agreements inside the UK, representing a virtually 25 per cent increase within the Choice Hotels UK hotel portfolio and an extra 611 rooms.

    This agreement forms a critical portion of Choice Hotels’ growth solution to offer financial support to raise development in key international markets, which includes Europe, via the company’s capital as a targeted incentive to hotel developers and operators to go into into franchise agreements located in strategic locations and markets.

    Under the agreement, five Akkeron hotels in Bristol, Bury St. Edmunds, Colchester,
    Peterborough and Kings Lynn may be rebranded under the standard brand and another four hotels located in Winchester, Darlington, Ringwood and Stevenage will operate under the Clarion Collection brand.

    The newly branded Choice hotels, Quality Hotel Bury St. Edmunds, Quality Hotel Peterborough and Clarion Collection Cromwell Stevenage, are anticipated to return online throughout the Choice Hotels Europe system by the tip of February.

    The remaining Quality and Clarion Collection brand hotels are expected to come back online throughout 2013.

    “We are delighted to have entered into this relationship with Akkeron Hotels Group.

    “Akkeron is a sturdy hotel operator and an amazing company for Choice Hotels Europe to work with and grow its presence inside the UK. The agreement initially will talk about rebranding nine hotels with the chance to debate rebranding further Akkeron hotels at some point,” commented Duncan Berry, UK chief executive, Choice Hotels Europe.

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  • News: IHIF: Worldhotels expands portfolio of branded hotels

    Worldhotels, a number one global group for independent upscale hotels, is growing its branded soft franchise solution because the ideal alternative to standard franchising.

    The offer is amazingly competitive, as costs to owners are based purely on brand performance in total net room revenue delivery.

    Since introducing the brand new business model in 2011, Worldhotels has already branded 15 hotels and plans so as to add another 20 by 2014.

    Ingo Guerges, vp global hotel development at Worldhotels explained why the brand new model was created:

    He said: “Hotels kept asking us for a better level of partnership – without the high operational interference of traditional upscale franchises.

    “So we prepare an answer that follows our motto of ‘If you own a hotel, it can feel such as you own a hotel.’”

    Worldhotels’ soft franchise solution focuses purely at the commercial side of the business, to generate and capture opportunities for room revenue growth from all segments and all distribution channels.

    The model would not require any hardware standards, as Robert van der Graaf, Worldhotels’ newly appointed regional vp full licence Europe, Middle East and Africa, illustrates.

    “We’ve always said that standards don’t need to mean standardisation,” he stated.

    “Our role is only to confirm the emblem and supporting systems deliver the absolute best results for our hotels, without interfering within the actual delivery of an authentic upscale hotel experience.”

    The model is built on over 40 years of successes of Worldhotels’ affiliation model and makes a speciality of three areas – firstly full commercial support to maximize the hotel’s exposure under a world brand, secondly increase hotel market share through total brand performance, system delivery and at last distribution cost control to ultimately achieve a particularly healthy return on investment for hotel owners.

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  • News: Harman International signs with GetThere for Sabre Virtual Meetings

    Harman International and GetThere, the world’s leading travel and collaboration management solution, have signed an agreement to make Sabre Virtual Meetings technology available to Harman employees worldwide.

    Using Sabre Virtual Meetings, Harman employees all over the world can reserve virtual meeting rooms as easily as they book flights, hotels and cars in GetThere. Harman, a Sabre customer since 2000, expects Sabre Virtual Meetings to aid them manage travel demand and increase use of the company’s existing investment in high-definition video conferencing assets.

    “Virtual Meetings is a robust new travel management mechanism,” said Sally Abella, director of world Corporate Travel for Harman International.  “Like most companies, we wish to control our travel spend, yet we know that travel is essential to growing the business. By utilizing video conferencing for more internal meetings, we will strategically redirect travel spend to trips which are customer-facing and sales focused.”

    Harman and GetThere are partnering to observe and track Harman’s goals to redirect internal travel spend and increase room utilization.

    “Demand for video conferencing is increasing exponentially and an increasing number of IT departments are called upon to support this demand,” said Thomas Blanchet, director of IT Infrastructure Architecture at Harman International. “Sabre Virtual Meetings gives our employees how to easily reserve and fasten video conferencing rooms in a safe and reliable enterprise-wide environment.”

    Until now, scheduling video conference systems was a challenging task with limited visibility into room availability, time zone challenges, and system compatibility issues. The end result have been an over-dependence on IT support and limited employee adoption which means that expensive video conferencing investments sit unused.

    “Sabre Virtual Meetings solves these challenges with a simple-to-use, global scheduling system. Room availability, compatibility, and connectivity are all seamlessly verified, so employees know where to book, what’s available and what to do once they happen to a gathering,” said Suzanne Neufang, president of GetThere and Sabre Virtual Meetings. “Our Virtual Meetings solution also enables public room and partner room access for those companies seeking to maximize visual collaboration.”

    Sabre Virtual Meetingsis the sole solution providing enterprise-wide, secure access to non-public and partner video conferencing rooms in addition a world network of over 4,000 public rooms. Reminiscent of online travel reservations, all options for a given city pair search are provided in one, secure booking path. Filtered by company policy and room availability that the corporation explicitly authorizes, employees can choose the room options that best meet their business needs.

    GetThere, a Sabre Travel Network brand, provides technology to corporations. Its innovative online and mobile booking tools come in 15 languages and utilized by thousands of businesses in additional than 85 countries including a majority of Fortune 200 corporations. Each year, millions of industrial travelers use GetThere to book and manage their work trips and meetings. The world’s largest online corporate travel provider, GetThere processes greater than $9 billion in annual business travel spend.

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  • IHIF: Steigenberger Grandhotel Brussels opens to public

    The Steigenberger Hotel Group now has a presence on the very heart of Europe inside the sort of the Steigenberger Grandhotel Brussels.

    Located within the city centre and offering 269 rooms and suites, the hotel opened on January 1st 2013 and is busy welcoming guests from around the world.

    The New Year got off to a terrific start with the official opening of the Steigenberger Grandhotel in Brussels on January 1st 2013.

    The luxury hotel is housed behind an historic facade and forms portion of the Wiltcher’s Complex within the elegant surroundings of Avenue Louise.

    It has 269 rooms including 40 suites and a Royal Suite in addition to accommodating the “Café Wiltcher’s” Restaurant and the “Loui Lounge and Bar”.

    Conferencing facilities may be able to cater for as much as 600 persons across 13 conference rooms.

    The Ballroom on the Steigenberger Grandhotel, which extends over a place of 550 m² and is the most important column-free facility of its kind inside the city, is adjoined by a three,200 m² gym and beauty and health spa area operated by Aspria.

    The Steigenberger Grandhotel Brussels is found in the direct vicinity of the Royal Palace, the Grand Place, the eu Parliament and the Congress Centre and within easy reach of the main sights.

    The hotel’s Director is the internationally experienced hotel manager Blanche van Berckel. Steigenberger Hotel Group chief executive Puneet Chhatwal welcomed the move into the Belgian capital.

    “The Steigenberger Grandhotel in Brussels is a wonderful addition to our portfolio”, he commented.

    “We are delighted to be represented in a city on the heart of Europe inside the kind of this outstanding hotel.”

    An investment programme for the following couple of years was agreed with the hotel’s owner AG Real Estate so as to be capable to provide guests with the very highest levels of quality and repair consistent with Steigenberger’s international standards.

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