Emaar Hospitality Group, the hospitality and leisure business of Dubai-based Emaar Properties PJSC, in partnership with the Kalyan Group, has marked its expansion to Sub-Saharan Africa to operate Address Hotel 2 Février Lomé Togo, an iconic hotel set in the heart of the city, in the tallest building in Togo, and unrivalled in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Indian School of Hospitality (ISH), is redefining hospitality education and learning and development for the industry through a focus on Virtual Reality technology as a learning and training aid.
Along with the US-based virtual reality developers TRANSFRVRTM, ISH hosted the first ever virtual reality hospitality Learning and Development workshop at the brand-new technology enabled ISH Campus in Gurugram. This path-breaking VR workshop displays a completely revolutionary approach to training and learning in an efficient and cost-effective new way.
Prototypes of VR modules for Bartending, Housekeeping and Coffee Making were demonstrated to senior housekeeping, food and beverage, training leaders and General Managers of the industry in a series of workshops held at ISH.
The opportunity was to showcase the technologies and the opportunities and then take the feedback from the industry in order to develop comprehensive modules for use in training as well as in education.
Participants had the opportunity to experience TRANSFRVR’s proprietary VR technology personally and see the possibilities of the software being tailormade to meet their needs. ISH and TRANSFRVRTM are collaborating to find solutions which can help companies in bolstering employee development and skilling and academic institutions in the field of hospitality management, culinary arts, housekeeping and F&B.
Dilip Puri, founder and CEO, said: “It is the vision of ISH to bring in new technologies, which can enable learning in education, as well as learning and development for hospitality and allied industries. We are delighted to have had the opportunity to showcase this amazing technology and the opportunities it presents.
"This marks the beginning of integrating technologies for a better learning experience for both ISH students, and companies across industries. I am looking forward to introducing and using VR technology into our own curriculums for all our long- and short-term programmes. I believe it can give our students a completely revolutionary way of acquiring new skills and knowledge.”
Bharanidharan Rajakumar, CEO, TRANSFRVR stated: “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Dilip and his exceptional team at ISH to bring our virtual reality hospitality training model to India. We look forward to helping students, employees, managers and companies achieve their professional goals while also supporting the development of India’s rapidly growing hospitality industry.”
The total combined turnover of UK hospitality business is set to surpass £100b in 2018, according to a new analysis of government figures.
Official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that all businesses providing ‘accommodation and food services’ reached £98b in 2017, up from £92b in 2016 and £86b in 2015.
The sector has consistently grown at between 5% and 6.5% year on year for the past five years according to recruitment platform Adia, and it predicted that even modest growth of 2% would carry the sector over £100b this year.
Millennium Hotels and Resorts has furthered its expansion into Saudi Arabia with the opening of a new hotel in Madinah at Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport.
Featuring 227 rooms, the Millennium Madinah Airport is designed to provide pilgrims and visitors a luxurious accommodation in the city.
Situated near the centre of Al Madinah al-Munawwarah, Millennium Madinah Airport has also been designed for business with four distinguished meeting spaces hosting up to 75 guests.
Divided into categories such as Deluxe Room, Superior Room, Club Room and Executive Suite; the hotel features 227 rooms dressed in rich furnishings, warm colours and fitted with the latest amenities and technology.
Budget hotels chain FabHotels plans to enter more than 15 additional cities and is looking to add 1,000 hotels under the franchise model in its inventory by end of this fiscal, a top company official has said.
The company currently has over 400 hotels under its inventory in around 40 cities.
"We continue to expand rapidly and are aiming to add 1,000 more properties across the emerging business cities in India by the end of FY19," FabHotels Founder & CEO Vaibhav Aggarwal told PTI.
The company plans to enter more than 15 additional cities this fiscal year. The locations include Kanpur, Ludhiana, Allahabad, Rajkot, Surat, Aurangabad, Ajmer, Ranchi, Raipur and Jamshedpur, among others, he added.
"We have a very high demand from hotels to partner with us, reinstating the faith in our business model and the shift which the industry is experiencing at present," Aggarwal said.
Jack Daniel has launched the Tennessee Whiskey Coffee that tastes and smells of whiskey. The non-alcoholic product is made by World of Coffee with 100% Arabica coffee, roasted medium and infused with Old No.7 flavour.
It’s sold as ground coffee in both regular and decaffeinated, and is currently available in the US and on the Jack Daniel’s online store.
OYO Hotels has finally announced its foray into the hospitality industry of China officially. Its current chain comprises of over 11,000 exclusive – franchised or manchised – rooms in 26 cities. The list includes Hangzhou, Xian, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Kunming among others.
Earlier in May this year, reports surfaced about OYO’s expansion to China, operating in eight hotels with a total of 400 rooms.
With its foray into China, OYO is set to compete with well-established hospitality players in the country like GreenTree Inns, Motel 168, 7Days Inn, and Home Inns.
Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO – OYO said, “China’s tourism industry is on the cusp of booming and flourishing wherein it enjoys a strong influx of both domestic and international tourists; also the market is as fragmented as the Indian hotel market.”
Thailand-based hotel developer Dusit International has announced plans to open at least 10 new properties over the next 12 months across Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore and Vietnam.
The openings will increase the number of Dusit-branded properties in operation to 37. There are in line with Dusit's plan for sustainable and profitable growth. The company aims to have 14,000 guestrooms operating across more than 20 countries by 2021, increasing from Dusit's current 27 hotels with more than 7,000 guestrooms in nine countries.
Indian School of Hospitality (ISH), the hospitality education venture of former Managing Director of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, South Asia, Mr. Dilip Puri, today signed an agreement with CoHo, a technology start-up that focuses on providing bespoke accommodation for the millennial generation, ensuring ISH will provide a never before seen standard of student accommodation within the country.
Set to open its doors to students in August, 2018, ISH aims to reimagine hospitality and culinary education, teaching, and the student lifestyle. Following the signing with CoHo, ISH students will now have access to tailor-made accommodation based on an international model of professionally managed student housing. ISH will be offering its students a western-model of student living, with fully furnished, modern apartment living, a flatmate system, as well as private kitchen, living and recreational amenities.
Founder & CEO of the Indian School of Hospitality, Dilip Puri, commented: “One of the most commonly asked questions we face is regarding student accommodation. With this step, I am happy to announce that the level of student accommodation we offer is unprecedented. With this step forward, we are changing the concept of student housing itself. Change within the traditional model of student hostels is long overdue, and we at ISH want to bring in a new, global standard of housing for our students, helping change the student study-leisure balance and lifestyle, and reimagining the way student accommodation is both perceived and executed.”
ISH’s partners in their venture to reimagine student accommodation, CoHo, already manage over 2.5 lakh square feet of housing space across both Delhi and Delhi NCR. Driven by the philosophy of providing a hassle-free living experience, CoHo is driven by high class, tech enabled, services. Commenting on their tie up with ISH, Uday Lakkar, Founder & CEO of CoHo said “We are extremely proud to partner with a visionary brand like ISH to expand our foray into the coliving and student housing space in India and shall continue to disrupt and re-define the living experience of millennials in India in the coming times”.
The Worldchefs Congress & Expo 2018 is a bi-annual global event where chefs from more than 100 countries come together as a united chef community.
Amazon officially launched Alexa for Hospitality together with Marriott International, which said it's bringing the new feature to about 10 of its US locations over the summer, including Charlotte Marriott City Center in North Carolina and Marriott Irvine Spectrum in California. Alexa for Hospitality will also be available to other hoteliers by invitation only.
"We want to strip away the things that might create unexpected surprises or bumps in the road and create as seamless an experience as possible," Jennifer Hsieh, Marriott's vice president of customer experience innovation, said at the demo, mentioning
Alexa's new ability to check you out of your room so you won't have to stop by the front desk.
Rausch said Alexa for Hospitality will allow hoteliers to customize their Echo speakers to each property, allowing them to provide guests with local restaurant and attractions recommendations and specific information about the hotel, like pool and gym hours. Amazon also developed a new back-end system to help hotels manage a whole fleet of Echo devices.
Amazon will soon allow people to connect their Amazon accounts to their hotel Echo speakers, letting them access their Audible audiobooks and music services including Amazon Music, Spotify, and Pandora. The devices will disconnect from a guest's account at checkout.
see more at https://www.amazon.com/alexaforhospitality
In talk with Chennais Amirta International Institute of Hotel Management, Chennai, Sourish shared his wisdom with future hoteliers.
Hospitality Industry is being always booming with its continuous growth every year. Gone are the days when you will find only counted leading hotels mostly the Indian origin brands, e.g. – Taj, Oberoi, ITC, Leela Group of Hotels, etc., but today there are plenty of leading international brands have made their strong presence in India, hence the chance of getting the desired job in leading hotels after the course is much easier than earlier, as there are more opportunities available to the right talents. However, the basic requirements of an individual remain the same, which I call it as ABCD of the hospitality for beginners.
‘A’ being the attitude of the individual shows how positive he/she is to excel in the industry.
‘B’ signifies the body language of a person which accounts for the 55% of the effective communication, as we are in hotel industry dealing with our guests every day, the body language plays a vital role in all aspects of our communication.
‘C’ refers to the commitment level; although there are plenty options available for a hospitality professional to take up in terms of getting a job, however, a true professional is always being judged based on his/her commitment level.
‘D’ means to be the dedication factor of an individual, how much the person can put in his/her efforts to achieve the success; fortunately, there is no substitute of hard work which goes hand in hand with the dedication. If you are dedicated to learn and experiment with new ideas, you will certainly discover your own success.
Hence, as per me, ABCD – Attitude, Body Language, Commitment, Dedication remains the stepping stone to achieve success for all hospitality professional and we have enormous examples of successful hospitality professionals.
Today’s hospitality is more with young and dynamic talents who do not step back to innovative ideas to keep the guest happy. Technology has always been playing a vital role in the success factor. With the help of internet through much more faster way (either through google or any through browsers) an individual can explore all the possibilities and get to know the happenings around the globe; hence the knowledge is no more limited at all. The creative mind is being recognized all over, the talent is being showcased to everyone. Of course, the credit goes to our beloved social media, which is now much stronger than the earlier days. We at Accor Hotels live by our six values and one of them is ‘Innovation’ which always empowers the employees to think in a creative manner to find a unique way of satisfying our guests. An empowered employee always strives for excellence, motivates co-workers and engages with the team for superlative performance.
Sourish Bishnu Jana is the Learning & Development Manager @ Novotel - Ibis Chennai Sipco since February 2016, with an experience of 12 years with Radisson Group of Hotels, Sarovar Group of Hotels, Taj Group of Hotels.
Fast-growing MSC Cruises unveiled yet another giant new ship over the weekend.
The Switzerland-based line on Saturday officially welcomed the 4,134-passenger, 18-deck-high MSC Seaview with a star-studded christening ceremony in Genoa, Italy.
At 154,000 tons, Seaview ranks as the 16th largest cruise ship in the world.
A sister to the recently unveiled MSC Seaside, Seaview is the third new ship to debut at MSC Cruises in just the past 12 months.
Currently operating 15 vessels, privately-owned MSC is in the midst of a massive expansion that is bringing nearly a dozen new ships by 2026. The company's passenger capacity is set to nearly triple in a decade.
Los Angeles, CA – KEYPR®, the technology company whose enterprise cloud platform is the leader in guest experience and hospitality management, is announcing its partnership with Nevaya, the go-to TV cloud entertainment company for hospitality, to create KEYPR TV. The new feature allows guests to stream content from their personal mobile devices or KEYPR's in-room tablets to hotel TVs, with no app downloads, required sign-ins, or overly-complex access codes.
As evidenced by the shift in how consumers are increasingly engaging with mobile and digital content at home the trend is also being pulled into hospitality. According to Zenith Media, nearly one-quarter of all media consumption across the world is mobile today and aggressively growing. This highlights a massive opportunity for hotels to increase guest satisfaction by adopting mobile-friendly content technologies.
The Hyatt Capital Gate Abu Dhabi is to be rebranded later this year, becoming the first Andaz property in the Middle East.
Known as the "leaning tower of Abu Dhabi", the hotel is owned by Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (Adnec) and sits within the Capital Centre district. It will become the Andaz Capital Gate Abu Dhabi.
It will feature a permanent art collection and "various examples of unique craftsmanship such as Khatt calligraphy art and local, traditional Sadu weaving.
"We are extremely excited to introduce the Andaz brand to the Middle East," said Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, group chief executive of Adnec
Centro Barsha by Rotana, Dubai, an affordable lifestyle business hotel, has appointed Imad Akil as its new general manager.
Having begun his hospitality career in Front Office at the Jeddah Hilton and Qasr Al Sharq Waldorf Astoria in Saudi Arabia, Akil joined Rotana Hotels as far back as 2008 for the pre-opening of Amwaj Rotana Jumeirah Beach, Dubai.
Since then, he has worked on the pre-opening of two other Rotana hotels and has grown through the ranks as director of Front Office, director of Rooms and most recently as executive assistant manager before joining Centro Barsha as general manager.
The Fern Hotels & Resorts, India's leading environmentally sensitive hotel chain has launched the Anaya Beacon Hotel in Jamnagar which is the ninth hotel to be managed by the company under the Beacon Hotels brand.
The other Beacon properties are located in Ajmer, Amritsar, Bhopal, Jodhpur, Mumbai, Rajkot, New Delhi and Udaipur. The 40-room Anaya Beacon Hotel is a mix of 18 Deluxe Rooms, 15 Executive Rooms, six Executive Premium Rooms, a Suite, and also has a multi-cuisine vegetarian restaurant – Fiesta@Beacon.
source - http://www.hospitalitybizindia.com/detailNews.aspx?aid=28927&sid=1
Singapore-listed Ascendas Hospitality Trust (A-HTrust) is acquiring a portfolio of three hotels in Osaka, Japan for ¥10.29 billion ($93 million), deepening its presence in the Japanese city with a strong hospitality market.
In a disclosure to the Singapore Exchange on Monday, A-HTrust said, it will acquire Hotel WBF Kitasemba West, Hotel WBF Kitasemba East, and Hotel WB Honmachi via Ascendas Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trust.
Real estate development and hospitality veteran Peter Peterson announces the launch of Cultivate Hospitality Group, a Los Angeles-based full-service food and beverage ideation, consulting and management company created to pair real estate developers and property owners with innovative restaurant and entertainment concepts. Providing a one-stop shop for unique food and beverage and real estate development opportunities, Cultivate offers a full menu of capabilities that can be tailored through a la carte options including custom concept creation and master planning, development oversight, public relations/marketing strategies, asset management, market analysis and more. With food and beverage taking center stage as a key driver in the world of real estate, the Cultivate team's deep relationships and more than 60-years combined experience in both signature culinary ideation and real estate development brings a unique, never-before-seen expertise to the marketplace.
"Curated culinary programming has proven to be the secret sauce in driving successful development," said Peter Peterson, President and Managing Partner of Cultivate
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