“After an above-average growth in the past years, the success story of Best Western Hotels has continued through the business year of 2008″, rejoices Marcus Smola, Director of Best Western Hotels Deutschland GmbH, who has been managing the German branch of the world’s largest hotel chain since April of last year. “As a strong brand for the individual hotel industry, we are well prepared for the upcoming challenges, despite difficult economic conditions”, said Smola. The hotel group will be presenting another record business year in Germany at their annual press conference in Frankfurt.

by editorial office, chd, tophotel.de

So it happened, after all: Hotel tycoon Donald Trump was not able to prevent the downfall of his Atlantic City casinos and has now opted for creditor protection for Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. The 62-year old is now bankrupt – at least as main shareholder of the casino group. He resigned from his position of Chairman of the Board. His daughter, Ivanka, a member of the directorate for two years, stepped down from her post, as well. It remains to be seen if he will be able to buy back his casino empire – he did point at it, at any rate.

The Finnish air carrier Finnair Plc has launched an English-speaking blog on the Internet. At blogs.finnair.com, experts from the company will publish articles on topics such as holidays, air safety and environmental protection in air travel. The directorate will also be contributing as bloggers.

It is Finnair’s intention to make the company more transparent and to promote the exchange of opinions. In addition, they want to better inform shareholders and flight guests by giving them a look behind the scenes, said Christer Haglund, Spokesperson of Finnair in Helsinki. The blog allows for relaxed, direct and interactive communication.

Despite economic turbulence worldwide, the Asia Pacific tourism industry has received a welcome boost from data contained in the Visa and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Asia Pacific Travel Intentions Survey ‘Determining Travel Preferences in 2009 and Beyond’1.

The survey found that, of the 5,554 people surveyed, 36 percent said they did not expect to make any changes to their travel plans in the near future while 64 percent of respondents were reviewing their plans in the light of economic uncertainty.

The executive board and members of management of Germany’s second-largest air carrier, Air Berlin, waived 50 percent of the bonuses they were entitled to for the business year of 2008. In doing so, they contributed a total of 2 million euros to “Jump”, a package of measures initiated in Spring, 2008. This means that the management is forgoing 10 percent, and the executive board 25 percent of their annual wages.

The executive board confirms that the projections of positive operational results for the completed business year 2008 are expected to be met, despite increased fuel costs in the previous year and a heavily slowed economy.

by editorial office, mas

Hotel management company Grand City Hotels & Resorts (GCHR) has expanded its team in Berlin, the region showing the largest earnings, with two new sales employees. Nadine Wincke and Zeèv Rosenberg are to intensify the fast growing company’s sales activity for 14 GCHR hotels in the capital, including all hotels from strategic alliances and comprising a total of 2,800 rooms.