IHG: Holiday Inn owner braces for 50 per cent Middle East hit Hospitality Holiday Inn owner IHG expects to see a 50 per cent hit to its operations in the Middle East, as the Iran war wreaks havoc on global travel. Intercontinental Hotels Group said revenue per available room in the Middle East slumped to a 26 per cent year-on-year fall in March, reversing the nine per cent [...]
Whitbread to cut nearly 4,000 jobs in £2bn cost saving plan Hospitality Whitbread is to slash nearly 4,000 jobs as part of plans to offload restaurants and sell off the freehold rights to its hotels, in a bid to raise £2bn. Shares in the company slipped on Thursday after it announced the plans to raise £1.5bn by selling off the freehold rights to a raft of its [...]
Old school glamour returns to The Langham with Sale e Pepe Mare Life&Style From champagne trolleys to tableside theatre, Sale e Pepe Mare at The Langham shows hotel restaurants can be fun and fabulous.
Whitbread hopes to win back investors with £1.5bn property sell-off April 29, 2026 Premier Inn owner Whitbread will hope to win back investors when it announces a £1.5bn sell-off of a shedload of its property portfolio on Thursday. The FTSE 100 giant is gearing up for its full-year results later this week, and aims to please its investors with a cash injection to turn the corner on a [...]
‘Relentless pressures’: More hospitality firms forced to shut even before Iran war April 17, 2026 The rate of corporate collapse in hospitality surged in February in signs the sector was struggling to stay afloat even before the Iran war brought further cost pressures. The number of accommodation and food service firms declaring insolvency jumped by 22 per cent to 270 in February, according to government data. This acceleration of the crisis [...]
I’m a hotel expert. Here’s why I hate in-room technology April 17, 2026 At the newly opened Treehouse Hotel in Manchester, the rooms are designed to look like… well, treehouses. But the feeling of arboreal living was disrupted when I tried to order room service, which you must do through the TV. It didn’t work. I was no longer in a treehouse. I was in a hotel, unable [...]
The rollercoaster ride for creditors chasing bankrupt theme park investor April 15, 2026 It was billed as Britain’s answer to Disneyland Paris. Unveiled in 2012, plans for the vast 900-acre theme park in Kent dazzled locals with boasts of building Europe’s largest indoor water park, a host of Mission Impossible-themed rollercoasters and the creation of 27,000 jobs. Hollywood giant Paramount ramped up the excitement, announcing it would be [...]
Energy bills threat recedes but retail and hospitality remain on brink April 8, 2026 Retail and hospitality leaders are optimistic that the Iran-US ceasefire could spare them from the worst energy bill shocks, but are urging the government to address an array of other cost pressures. British businesses had warned that the soaring energy prices caused by the war in the Middle East could be devastating if the conflict [...]
Hotel investment tops £1bn in bumper start to year April 1, 2026 UK hotels attracted more than £1bn investment in the first quarter of this year, as the sector defies business rate rises and market uncertainty caused by the Iran war. Hotel investment volume surpassed £1.1bn in the first three months of the year, marking a 63 per cent increase on the £680m recorded in the same [...]
Two-thirds of hospitality firms to cut jobs as April tax rises ‘suffocate’ sector April 1, 2026 Two-thirds of hospitality businesses will be forced to cut jobs and one in seven will shut altogether as a direct result of “suffocating” April tax rises, leading trade bodies have found. More than half (51 per cent) of hospitality firms will cancel investment plans and 42 per cent will reduce trading hours, according to a [...]