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  • Westin opens in Chennai, India

    Westin Hotels and Resorts, component to Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc, today announced the hole of The Westin Chennai Velachery. Strategically located within the fast growing business district of Chennai inside the Southern portion of India, The Westin Chennai Velachery is the sixth Westin hotel in India and the 1st out of 7 new Westin hotels expected to open in 2013 across Asia Pacific.

    “The Westin Chennai Velachery is a major addition to our strong Westin portfolio in India,” said Brian Povinelli, Global Brand Leader, Westin Hotels & Resorts. “We are delighted with the success of the logo and the rave reviews it has received from our guests. The prime location of The Westin Chennai Velachery and the draw of the signature Westin experience, designed to offer our guests just a little well-being within the center of the colourful city of Chennai, make us confident that this new landmark hotel will soon become a well-liked destination for both business and leisure travelers.”

    A Modern-Day Oasis in the course of Chennai

    Located within 20-minute drive from Chennai Domestic and International Airport, the hotel provides convenient accessibility to Guindy business district, OMR-IT corridor, city center and Chennai Trade Centre.

    Nestled amidst lush greenery of Chennai, the hotel’s sensory rich environment offers a refreshing respite from the bustling metropolitan city and lines a wide ranging view of the cityscape and the encircling green environment. Upon entering the hotel’s lobby, guests are transported from the typical and are greeted with 35-feet cascading water body located within the central courtyard of the hotel. Visible from the most important lobby, Seasonal Tastes™ restaurant is a spectacular visual delight offering international cuisine with live cooking stations.

    A New Haven for Travelers

    The hotel offers 215 spacious and lavishly appointed guestrooms and suites with refreshing pool or city skyline views. Each guestroom is outfitted with the area-renowned Westin Heavenly® Bed – an oasis of lush sheets, down and a patented pillow-top mattress, which cradles and features to the body for truly restorative sleep. Guests can revive within the Heavenly® Bath enhanced with the brand’s Heavenly® Shower, Heavenly® Robe and White Tea Aloe bath amenities, in-room and high-speed Internet access.

    Westin brand’s innovative programs and instinctive service transform every aspect of a guest’s stay into revitalizing comfort making the hotel ideal for rejuvenation both for the business in addition to the leisure traveler. The Westin Executive Club located at the top floor, is indeed a very exclusive and pampering experience. It offers panoramic views of the town with complimentary breakfast, Wireless Internet Access, and evening cocktail service with an eclectic number of hors d’oeuvres.

    The Westin Chennai Velachery offers the 24-hour WestinWORKOUT Fitness Studio. When you like to combine their workout routine with fresh air and native scenery, the hotel also offers a bunch run with the special RunWESTIN™ program. Guests can enjoy a refreshing dip within the outdoor swimming pool, or select from the rejuvenating bouquet of massages and therapies on the Heavenly Spa by Westin™.

    Replenish and nourish the body with probably the most many distinctive culinary experiences on the hotel’s three restaurants: Seasonal Tastes, the contemporary all day dining restaurant, features an eclectic display of local and International cuisine in addition Westin brand’s signature SuperfoodsRx™ menu that provides nutrient rich and delicious options to tempt every palate; experience the flavors of authentic Pan Asia delicacies at EEST™; or, atone for favourite sport with a heady number of beverages on the cricket themed lounge bar- Willows. The open-air Poolside Grill & Barbeque venue serves a repertoire of Latin American, Middle Eastern and Indian grills with the option in barbeque offerings.

    State-of-the-art meeting space

    With over 12,600 square feet of refined meeting and performance space, including 2 large pillar-less ballrooms and 12 break-out rooms and a Business Center, the hotel is a perfect host for everything from intimate business affairs to massive-scale corporate meetings. Equipped with high-speed internet access, sophisticated audio visual technology, and primary of its kind ergonomically designed performance chair, the hotel offers inspiring and smart solutions for a distinguishing meeting and social experience.

    “Making a mark with its sophisticated style, instinctive service and native & international cuisine, The Westin Chennai Velachery is a highly anticipated addition to the portfolio of 5 star hotels within the city of Chennai. We believe that business travelers, meeting planners and individual travelers may be delighted with the Westin emphasis on well-being and the innovative signature services which have earned Westin worldwide recognition,” says Shrikant Wakharkar, General Manager.

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  • Sainsbury’s Bank reports record sales in travel money orders

    Sainsbury’s Bank Travel Money saw online orders for foreign exchange almost triple last Sunday.

    The supermarket bank, that is committed to competitive rates and regular supplementary deals, reports that last week it received a 182% increase in online orders for travel money in comparison to a standard Sunday. Moreover, the transaction value was 33% higher than average.

    Sainsbury’s Bank believes the rise, which has continued both in store and online this week, could partly, be as a result of holidaymakers seeking to secure current rates amongst concerns that the pound could fall further against the worth of the euro and dollar. The bank is encouraging anyone purchasing currency during periods of heightened volatility to make sure that they’re shopping around to secure the most effective deal.

    Simon Taylor, from Sainsbury’s Travel Money, commented: “We saw an actual increase fashionable for foreign exchange on the weekend and into this week which we believe may partly be as a result volatility of Sterling and reports around economic uncertainty and the hot change to the UK’s credit standing. It’s impossible to assert when things will improve, so we’re committed to providing great rates for the Sainsbury’s shopper and at the moment in store, if a customer finds a much better rate advertised at a ‘walk-up’ bureau within 5-miles of a Sainsbury’s Bank bureau, we’ll offer to overcome it. 

    Sainsbury’s Travel Money provides customers with the choice of ordering foreign currencies online, over the telephone or in-store at some of the bank’s 126 bureaux at selected Sainsbury’s stores around the UK. Customers even have the benefit of ordering currency online or over the telephone and collecting it in-store or having it delivered on to their home

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  • News: Airport Cities World Conference 2013 speaker line up and programme announced

    London-based event organiser UBM Live has announced the overall programme and speaker line up for this year’s Airport Cities World Conference and Exhibition (ACE) 2013 within the City of Ekurhuleni, South Africa. 

    High profile figures from the Airport City community, including Professor John Kasarda, director of the centre for air commerce on the University of North Carolina, Sotiris Pagdadis, global head of airports at PWC and Chris Choa, principal at AECOM, will head a comprehensive line up of senior industry figures who shall be travelling from world wide to chat on the event.

    This year’s ACE will happen on the Emperors Palace Hotel within the City of Ekurhuleni, South Africa, from April 24-26, 2013, and should be the 1st time it has ever been hosted on African soil.

    During the two-day conference and exhibition, leading authorities at the airport city and aerotropolis concepts could be joined by a range of government officials, airport CEOs, and industry experts from all corners of the globe.

    Speakers include influential and well-respected figures reminiscent of Jeff Fegan, CEO of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Larry Cox, CEO of Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, Kim Day, manager of aviation at Denver International Airport, and Rajeev Kumar Jain, CEO of Mumbai International Airport, who will join many others to return to South Africa and discuss the most recent developments, trends, success stories and best practices from inside the airport city community.

    Conference sessions will see these experts tackling and discussing topics consisting of the original economic, geographical and cultural challenges in airport city and aerotropolis development; the relationships between stakeholders and regions; the latest airport city projects; masterplanning; investment and infrastructure development, commercial development and airport real estate; non- aeronautical revenue development and plenty more.

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  • News: Hebridean Island Cruises returns to Norway in 2014

    Hebridean Island Cruises, operator of the world’s smallest luxury cruise ship, Hebridean Princess, can be returning to Norway in 2014 for the primary time in five years.

    Hebridean Island Cruises will offer a complete of 3 different itineraries in August 2014 sailing to a couple of Norway’s best known fjords including Hardangerfjord, Sognefjord, Ulvikfjord and Raunefjord.  The call follows a survey conducted amongst loyal guests soliciting for suggestions on cruising areas.

    Hebridean Island Cruises may even extend its popular footloose walking programme to incorporate Footloose within the Fjords, featuring numerous walks in Balestrand, Laerdral, Fjaerland, in addition to the original opportunity to affix a glacier walk in Sogndal.

    Chief Operating Officer, Ken Charleson commented:

    “We wanted our guests to be interested by developing the cruise programme for 2014 and beyond. We asked for concepts on where to sail outside of Hebridean Princess’ home waters of Scotland. After receiving an overpowering variety of responses Norway emerged because the clear favourite.

    “We have carefully crafted a variety of itineraries which reflect the real nature of a Hebridean cruise, offering guests the chance to go to distant, off the beaten track places and the opportunity to sail through a dramatic landscape, famous for its mountains, glaciers and fjords.”

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  • Fattal Hotels takes over Queen Moat Houses portfolio

    Israeli hotel company, Fattal Hotels, in conjunction with a consortium of international investors has signed a binding agreement to accumulate the complete share capital of the Queens Moat Houses.

    Queens Moat Houses maintains a portfolio of hotels that presently contains 20 hotels, 15 of them Holiday Inns, four Best Western Hotels and one Queens Hotel.

    The properties can be found in Berlin, Munich, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Wolfsburg, Hanover, Baden-Baden, Aachen, Mönchengladbach and Karlsruhe.

    The portfolio comprises approximately 3,600 rooms, 28 bars and 29 restaurants in addition to 154 conference rooms with a complete area of 9,675 square meters.

    “The investment is according to our expansion plans – the hotels complement our existing Leonardo chain of hotels perfectly.

    “We still wish to keep growing and are negotiating further projects in major cities in Europe,” explained David Fattal, chief executive of Fattal Hotels/Leonardo Hotels.

    With this new portfolio, Fattal Hotel Group grows to 85 hotels with over 16,000 rooms.

    Some 54 hotels and eight,449 rooms can be found in Europe (Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Hungary and Germany) and 31 hotels with 7,600 rooms can be found in Israel.

    Following the QMH Germany portfolio acquisition, Fattal Hotels could be managing 45 hotels in 20 cities in Germany.

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