by editor’s office, ch
The four and five-star hotel market is far from saturated. The number of luxury hotels in Germany is going to rise by 20 percent over the next years. This is the conclusion reached by Carsten Henning of CHD Expert Deutschland http://www.chd-expert.de, based on calculations of the Foodservice Industry National Database (FIND) http://www.chd-expert.com/index.php?page=find. “The continuous growth in first-class and luxury hotels in the German-speaking region shows that, obviously, these market segments will raise the market volume – parallel to the still rising number of overnight stays,“ said Henning in an interview with pressetext.
Franz Jurkowitsch, chairman of Warimpex, reinforces the view on the present development boom in Germany in his interview with pressetext: “Well designed four-star hotels in favorable locations and with modern, design-oriented furnishing that meets the customers’ demands have an enormous competitive advantage over older hotels.“ Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, hotels were built in Germany by non-experts for reasons of tax optimization, which are now being replaced by new hotels, said Jurkowitsch.
More accurately, 42 new five-star hotels are to be opened in the next four years, according to Henning. Establishments in the first-class segment will grow by roughly six percent (176 new four-star hotels). The number of comfort hotels will rise by around one percent (87 new three-star projects). Overall, the German hotel market will grow by 2.6 percent – or 353 new hotels throughout all categories. The number of hotel projects world wide is estimated at 5,000, trending upwards.
The experts noted, however, that a strengthening goes hand in hand with cutthroat competition – especially in rate fights in major cities such as Berlin, where luxury and first-class hotels are heavily cutting prices, offering “four-star rates“ and “three-star rates“, respectively.
The current economic crisis, meanwhile, is casting dark shadows on the demand side of the hotel industry. “The tourism and hotel industries are facing difficulties, of course, especially in the five-star segment. But the flow of travelers in the summer season has apparently not changed, and barely declined. Many travelers are traveling to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea instead of the Mediterranean. How large of an impact the drop in room rates will have, especially in the luxury hotel industry, is not yet certain. First negative projections anticipate a recovery of rates to the level of early 2008 no earlier than 2011,” said Henning in the interview with pressetext.
He noted that location and standards are still among the most important factors for the success of a hotel. “In addition, more attention is being paid nowadays to room size and amenities, such as spacious bathrooms, walk-in showers, large televisions and first-class mattresses. It is also expected of most hotels to offer exceptional dining. And spa facilities have become an absolute necessity, as well,” said Henning. Another distinct trend in new hotel developments is having minimum room sizes of 30 square meters per room unit.
Courtesy of www.pressetext.de.
