IHG to add Hotel Indigo in Georgia, USA and other international hotel news

IHG to add Hotel Indigo in Georgia, USA
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is to add a Hotel Indigo property in Athens, Georgia, in the USA. The 100-room new-build hotel will be housed in a four-storey building, with construction anticipated to begin this autumn. Scheduled to open in 2009, the hotel will be owned by Rialto Property Partners under a licesce agreement with IHG and will be managed by IHG's Americas operations division, The Hotel Management Group. The hotel's facilities will include a fitness centre and Golden Bean restaurant as well as 2,500 sq ft of meeting space for business functions or special events.

Langham Hotels to add hotel in ChinaLangham Hotels International (LHI) is to launch a new hotel in China with the opening of the Langham Place hotel, Changchun in 2009. The 350-room hotel, which is LHI's second new hotel in the country after the Langham Place hotel Chaoyang in Beijing, will be located commercial district of Changchun. It will feature 3,000sq m of function space, including a grand ballroom and function rooms of varying sizes as well as four food and drink outlets, and a spa based on traditional Chinese medicine.

Asia Pacific room rates soar Half-year results from the HotelBenchmark Survey by Deloitte show that the hotel market in Asia Pacific is seeing much stronger growth this year than last. Revenue per available room (revpar) across the region is up 14% to US$97 (£48), outperforming the 9% growth of 2006. Improvements have been driven by double-digit increases in room rates, which now average US$137 (£68.50). Asia Pacific continues to build on, and benefit from its position as the world's second most visited region after Europe and for the first time last year, Asia's volume of international tourism receipts equalised with the Americas.

Kingdom Hotel buys $137m Seychelles hotel project Dubai-based hotel investment firm Kingdom Hotel Investments had acquired a luxury resort hotel and residence development work on the island of Pranslin in the Seychelles. The company said the total cost of the development of the resort will be around $137m (£68.5m).

Global warming threatens tourism in Spain Spain's beaches could disappear with rising sea levels and soaring temperatures set to threaten the country's crucially important tourism industry. As one of the world's top tourist destinations, Spain receives more than 58 million visitors a year but scientists believe temperatures are expected to rise to African levels in many popular holiday areas and will deter people from visiting the country. European Union experts say if the beaches of Spain lose a lot of their surface as predicted by the middle of the century, tourists will choose Northern Europe in search of a tranquil, less humid holiday.

By Kerstin Kühn

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