Upturn for hotel projects despite of credit crunch
12 billion Euros in hotel construction investments in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
Hotel development pulls up. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland the construction of new first class and luxury hotels is still increasing. About 443 projects with more than 76,000 rooms are arranged. This is the result of a new study by tophotelprojects.com®, the leading online database for top hotel projects worldwide. The focus of project development is on first class hotels. 55 percent of all projects in the German-speaking countries are targeted at business guests. Further trend are budget or comfort hotels, e.g. Motel One or Holiday Inn Express which appeal to young guests and business people alike.
Budget and economy hotels like Motel One, B&B and Ibis respectively Etap from Accor are very interesting for hotel investors. Compared to the first class and luxury hotel projects this segment is still rather small in the German-speaking countries. Currently 307 projects in the first class and luxury class category with a total of 59,500 rooms are planned. In the standard and comfort segment only 131 projects are scheduled.
Motel One is one of the most outstanding hotel brands of the budget and economy market. Founder Dieter Mueller has been voted for the prestigious award “Hotelier of the Year 2009”. Actually 12 new Motel One hotels with 3,124 rooms are planned in the German-speaking region.
The budget hotel chain B&B (short for bed & breakfast) expands strongly and evolves 17 projects with 1,403 rooms. And even market leader Accor plans for its well known budget and economy brands new projects: Seven projects of Ibis (745 rooms) and four projects of Etap (494 rooms).
The new comfort segment of the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), Holiday Inn Express is driven by four new construction projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Hilton Hotels Corp. plans two new Garden Inn hotels with a total of 488 rooms in Germany. “Another segment is in the focus of the hotel developers: Serviced apartments”, Schmidt observes. At present ten new boarding houses with more than 1,100 apartments are under construction.
The total investment of all hotel projects in the German-speaking countries is 11.9 billion Euros. The largest market share are first class hotel projects with 7.57 billion Euro followed by luxury hotels projects with 3.07 billion Euro.
(February 18, 2009)
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