Hotel News Now offers a weekly roundup of news from a different region of the world. This week’s compilation covers Europe.

Tristan Capital Partners has acquired a majority stake in Raag Hotels, owner of the ‘budget boutique’ brand Point A Hotels, for £420m [$546 million]. The brand has 10 properties, including seven in London in Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow, writes Terence Baker of Hotel News Now.

Tristan Capital said it plans to grow the portfolio by two to three hotels a year, first in the UK and Ireland, then potentially expanding across Europe, and up to 3,000 medium-term keys. The asset management company, Queensway, is to continue to manage them and hold a minority stake in the whole company.

For an undisclosed price, private equity firm KSL Capital Partners has acquired The Pig Hotels Group, a group of country hotels in the south of England, writes HNN’s Bakerwho added that the brand intends to grow organically.

Hotel brand founder Robin Hutson, CEO and chairman of parent group Home Grown Hotels, will remain chairman and shareholder. Hutson also founded Lime Wood Group, which owns and operates Lime Wood and Portetta Hotels, a seasonal mountain resort in Courchevel, France.

Travelodge UK will reposition most of its hotels and all new builds as “budget-luxury”, a movement that follows a survey of over 5,000 of its customers who said they wanted to see more “style, choice and warm little touches to make it easier to work, rest and relax indoors and out of the room”.

The change kicks off with 60 hotels before the end of the year, executives said. The brand, the UK’s second largest after Premier Inn, has more than 550 hotels across the country, with others in Ireland and Spain for a total asset portfolio of 593.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukrainian hoteliers have intensified pressure for their Western counterparts to withdraw from any Russian interest.

Ivan Loun, head of international relations at the Ukrainian Hotel & Resort Association, the national organization of hotel members in the country, said: “I am in this industry, and I understand that I bite the hand that feeds me, but the hotels operating from this flow of money – and we cannot verify every hotel – end up with wealthy Russians who cannot hide their political and economic position from the ruling Russian party.

UHRA sent letters pleading its case to Jens Zimmer Christensen, president of Europe’s leading hotel and hospitality organization HOTREC, and Zurab Pololikashvili, secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, writes HNN’s Baker.

After a few years in which UK value added taxes on hotels and hospitality were cut to 12.5% ​​as revenues fell due to the pandemic, things are looking up. where they started, at 20%with UKHospitality warning that this additional cost will be detrimental to consumers in times of high inflation.

Member organization CEO Kate Nicholls said hotels would fail as a result, with one on three “having less than a month of cash reserves and most…carrying a heavy debt burden. This can only derail the wider UK economic recovery.

As a conversion of the independent Benilux Park hotel, the 186-room Mercure Benidorm will be Benidorm’s first non-Spanish branded hotel in the coastal market when it opens in June, writes HNN’s Baker.

According to Statista, a Spanish data and statistics company, more than 11 million overnight stays were purchased in the city in 2019, 76.3% of which came from the UK.

Ivar Yuste, partner at PHG Hotels & Resorts, said that “classic mass-market resort destinations such as Magaluf, Benidorm, Torremolinos, Lloret de Mar and Salou are on my list of resort destinations with the most rotation potential. higher”, referring to the popularity with investors of conversions hoteliers.

Steigenberger Hotels AG a announced Oliver Bonke as its new CEO and Wilhelm Bender as the new president.

Bonke, with over 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, has worked for IHG Hotels & Resorts, Loews Hotels & Co., Shangri-La Group and Starwood Hotels, among other companies, while Bender’s experience has included 17 years as chairman of airport operator Fraport AG.

• Valor Hospitality will manage the new 35-room Dunluce Lodge in Portrush, Northern Ireland, which overlooks the Royal Portrush Golf Club.
• The Accor Ennismore division and ActivumSG Capital Management have entered into a long-term management agreement to open Europe’s first SLS-branded property, a 490-room hotel in Barcelona by the end of 2024.
• In early March, Swiss investment firm Aevis Victoria SA bought the 39-room L’Oscar in London’s Holborn district for £60million. [$78.2 million] or around £1.54 million [$2 million] by key. The management company is Michel Reybier Hospitality.
• Bespoke Hotels will open its second Brooklyn hotel, following its debut in Manchester, with the June opening of the 191-room Brooklyn Leicester Hotel in Leicester, UK
• The family office of the founders of the clothing brand Naf Naf, Pariente, through its hotel brand Maisons Pariente, will open its fourth hotel in France and the first in Paris with the opening in October of the 61-room Grand Mazarin.
• Scandic Hotels opened the 231-room Scandic Kiruna on April 5, which is the first hotel to open in the new city center of this northern Swedish city.
• Cycas Hospitality has opened its second dual-brand hotel in France, which also happens to be Marriott International’s first, the property at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport consisting of a 229-key Courtyard by Marriott and a Residence Inn by Marriott with 106 keys. It is also the first Residence in Paris;

• On April 11, Radisson Hotel Group also opened a dual-brand hotel in Oslo, with the 300-room Radisson Hotel & Conference Center Oslo Airport and the 214-room Radisson Red Oslo Airport.

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