by CH Tophotel.de

So far, the global economic crisis has had only a slight impact on the construction of new hotels. To date, one project (Trump Tower on The Palm Jumeirah) was „postponed“ indefinitely in boom town Dubai. And the opening of the Four Seasons Hotel Dubai, scheduled for 2010, is being rescheduled for 2011. According to tophotelprojects.com, two renovation projects (by Steigenberger Hotels) have been cancelled in Germany thus far. Also, according to media, the opening of Swissotel Dresden (at Neumarkt by the Frauenkirche) will be postponed to 2011; the 90 million Euro project had initially been supposed to be completed by beginning of 2010.

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There is no end to the construction site at Alexanderplatz, for the Spanish hotel chain „Best Hotels“ is planning the opening of its new hotel „Barcelona“ here in summer 2011. A group of investors is putting around €60 million into the plot where the GDR Ministry of Health once used to stand.
So there will now be another hotel? But not only at the „Alex“, but also at Hauptbahnhof and Zoofenster, further luxury hotels are in the planning.

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Next year’s ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) will be one of the biggest ATFs, thanks to overwhelming response from sellers, buyers and media to attend the event, to be held in Hanoi from January 5 to 12. All registrations for ATF 2009 are now closed. Despite the global financial crisis, or perhaps because of it, ATF 2009 is sold-out, with organisers at press time doing their best to accommodate more than 550 booths at the Vietnam Exhibition Fair Center.

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The new landmark in the making in Bangkok’s central business district – the Radisson Hotel Bangkok Sathorn – has appointed Melanie Ranoa as Director of Sales and Marketing.

Radisson Hotel Bangkok Sathorn is geared up to open in mid-2009 and is set to become one of the newest properties in the Radisson Hotels & Resorts portfolio, the leading upscale, full-service brand managed by Carlson Hotels Worldwide – Asia Pacific.

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Ten aircraft have been submerged off Bang Tao Bay in Phuket’s Talang district in the Andaman Sea to form a new artificial coral reef and diving site. The 16-18 meters deep area where the fleet was sunk has a sand bed, and is one kilometer away from the natural coral reef and the Bang Tao Beach.

The fleet of sunken aircraft consists of four Douglas C-47 Dakota Skytrains and six Sikorsky S-58T helicopters. They once belonged to the Royal Thai Air Force and were housed at an air base in Lopburi Province. The For Sea Foundation initiated the project to create an artificial coral reef following operations to fix natural coral reefs that were damaged by the devastating Tsunami that hit Asia in late December 2004.

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Another double-digit earnings inrease

Over the period from January to November 2008, Air Berlin transported a total of 26,752,602 passengers, i.e. 1.5 percent more than in the corresponding period of the previous year (2007: 26,363,830). Fleet capacity utilization for the first eleven months of 2008 was slightly higher than in the previous year, increasing from 77.6 to 78.8 percent (+1.2 percentage points).

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