The company has ownership in 58 of those hotels, including six wholly-owned assets. In Hungary, the company is
not reported to have a stake in the hotel, which is part of a mixed- use development. KÉSZ Holding is a new owner for the group, with principal Mihaly Varga commenting: “With its strong ties to the brand and solid operating platform, Interstate was the best choice. They have a robust presence in Western Europe and Russia, and we are pleased to be the developer that introduces this outstanding company to Eastern Europe.”
HA Perspective: Interstate is at the forefront of the trend towards separating management and brand – the brawn and brain split. It has also been a pioneer for Western hoteliers in Russia and has forged a JV with China’s Jing Jiang. And now it has added Hungary to its roster of emerging markets. How much cross fertilisation
there is in management experience across the many territories is hard to quantify but Interstate undoubtedly has a good spread of geographic risk and good exposure to fast growing emerging markets.
Melià looks for volatility
vaccine Meliá Hotels International said that it was looking to geographical diversity in its expansion, to act as “a vaccine against any increase in regional risk”.
The comments referred not only to varied performance in its
domestic estate, which has seen a split between urban and resort hotels, but also globally, with the “uneven pace of recovery in developed economies”. The news came as the company
reported a 9.3% increase in accumulated revpar for the first nine months of the year. Revenue fell by 0.7% to E969.5m while Ebitda was down 18.3% to E176.6m compared to the first nine months of 2010 due to lower capital gains (E36.6m from January to September 2011 against E93.2m in 2010), which included gains from the sale of the Tryp brand to Wyndham Hotel Group and from the sale of other assets. The group said it expected the gradual correction of this effect up to year-end. Third quarter results also included a 15.8% increase in revpar at Spanish resort hotels, notably in the Balearic and Canary Islands, which confirmed the rate trend seen during the first half of the year. The Spanish cities recorded revpar growth of 3.9%. The group expected the split between urban and resorts to continue, supported in part by a redirection of travellers due to the instability in North Africa. Further afield, in Latin America
the positive trend was expected to continue in Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In the Caribbean, the company forecast a positive high season for the first quarter of next year. The period also saw the company open its second hotel in the US, the Meliá Orlando, which it said it saw as important it terms of its position in the main feeder market for the resorts in the Caribbean. The group said that its alliance
with Wyndham had seen, during September, its Tryp by Wyndham hotels registering an incremental share of 5.6% in guests coming
from “key feeder markets”, with the 12% increase in the US market “especially encouraging”. The group said that, in the European cities, it expected revpar growth to continue, driven by bi- annual trade fairs and meetings in Germany and the Olympics in London. The company added: “Clearly a higher cautious stance is maintained regarding Spanish consumption – especially in the domestic urban segment and affecting therefore the Spanish cities – on the back of the potential stagnation of the economy.” Given, it said, the positive
developments and forecasts for international tourism in 2012, the company was planning to accelerates its international growth, continuing to do so though low capital intensive routes, with 88% of the hotels in its current pipeline of 32 hotels added under such methods. Agreements signed so far this year have seen it expand into countries such as Tanzania, Austria, Denmark and the UAE. In line with its asset-light strategy
and efforts to cut debt, the group said that it was continuing to look at the disposal of assets. CEO and vice-chairman Gabriel Escarrer confirmed that the company was currently valuing its assets, with the results expected “soon”. Debt rose to E1.17bn during the period, above the group’s E1bn target, as a result of the Paradisus Playa del Carmen resort and the ME London. Escarrer said that the group planned to have debt below the E1bn by the year-end.
HA Perspective: It is somewhat ironic that the resort market is proving one of the strongest performers for Melia. A few years ago it was the resort market which was characterised as the disease for which Melia needed a cure.
WWW.SLEEPERMAGAZINE.COM JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2012 107
Now the meltdown in the
Spanish economy has turned this on its head and it is the urban markets, particularly outside of central Madrid and Barcelona, which are suffering from a virus. And unfortunately the latest strain appears particularly virulent.
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