Hotels Round-up
Oriental Landmark
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has announced it will manage a new 118-bedroom hotel development opening in 2005 in Hong Kong.
The new property, owned by Hongkong Land, will be called the Landmark Mandarin Oriental and will be housed in the Landmark, one of the city's most successful commercial complexes.
The new hotel is expected to complement the group's flagship property, Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and remains one of the group's best-performing hotels.
Cue the snooker
This year's European Snooker Tournament is to take place at the Palace hotel, Torquay, Devon, on 11-16 March.
The event is to be staged in the hotel's 1,300sq m Palace Arena and is expected to directly boost the local economy by £1m.
Snooker champion Steve Davis is said to be delighted that the tournament is to be held in an area that has supported snooker so well in the past.
BITOA's best hotel
The Ramada Jarvis Bolton has been voted Hotel of the Year 2002 by members of the British Incoming Tour Operators Association (BITOA), the trade body for more than 300 inbound tourism organisations.
Executive general manager of Ramada Jarvis in the North-west and general manager of the hotel, Nathan Smith Hilliard, accepted the award from Scottish MP Mike Watson at BITOA's 26th annual convention in Edinburgh.
New-build Novotel
Novotel, the midmarket hotel chain, opened its first UK new-build hotel, on Southwark Bridge Road in London, on 25 February.
The new hotel brings the company's portfolio to 25 and the London total to six, with more than 1,600 bedrooms. Novotel is part of the Accor Group.
Savoia shuffle
London-based hotel company the Dorchester Group is to buy the Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan, Italy, from USA-based Starwood Hotels for €275m (£190m).
The sale of the 404-bedroom hotel, which is part of the Ciga hotel chain bought by Starwood in 1997, should be completed by late June.
The Dorchester Group owns and manages four hotels in Europe and the USA, including the 250-bedroom Dorchester hotel in London, the 203-bedroom Beverley Hills hotel in California and the 160-bedroom Hôtel Meurice in Paris. It is wholly owned by the Brunei Investment Agency.
Leicester plans
Plans for a 92-bedroom hotel in the centre of a £7.5m revamp of Leicester's city centre have been announced.
The hotel will be run by the Travelodge chain and is due to open in spring next year. It will be one of the city's largest hotels and will be built on a plum site at the centre of Leicester's ambitious regeneration project.
Ashford Inn reopens
Centre Island Hotels, which owns five hotels, has reopened the Holiday Inn in Ashford, Kent, following a £2m refurbishment. The 91-bedroom hotel, which was bought by the group last year, marking its first venture outside Merseyside, has employed 20 extra staff.
