Reports indicate that the hotels in Madrid experienced some falls in profitability during the month of May when compared to the same period last year. This is somewhat surprising since most hotels in in other parts of Spain actually experienced a general increase of revenue per available room (RevPAR) during the same month.

The information was recorded in the latest report from HotStats prepared by TRI Hospitality Consulting in collaboration with the Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation in Spain (CEHAT). The report examined mainly 4 and 5 star hotels under recognized brands in five different cities in Spain, namely, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Mallorca .

Four star establishments in Madrid delivered the worst results among the hotels examined in the report and the RevPAR actually fell by some 19.8 percent to €66.43 in May this year compared to €82.8o last year. The decline in profitability among five star hotels in Madrid was less pronounced. The RevPar stood at €165.05 which is just 2.5 percent lower than in 2010 and the average room price decreased by 2.8 percent to €214.78. Occupancy levels were up ever so slightly by 0.2 percent. A fall in gross operational profit (GopPar) of 35.1 percent was recorded in 4 star hotels and 8.2 percent in the 5…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

High Tech Hotels had opened two new hotels in Madrid, the Hotel Petit Palace Santa Barbara and the Hotel Petit Palace Savoy Alfonso XII. Requiring an investment of just over €10 million in order to totally renovate the buildings to convert them into hotels, High Tech Hotels appears to be ignoring the economic crisis in Spain and is continuing to follow its planned expansion. The president of the group, Javier Candela, recently stated: “We remain committed to Madrid and now have 21 hotels operating at the moment.”

The renovation of the buildings has been carried out in a way that respects the original facades and heritage elements, and now offers two new luxury hotels right in central Madrid. The Hotel Petit Palace Santa Barbara is located in one of the most prestigious parts of Madrid in the Alonso Martinez area of Chamberí. With 77 rooms, this four star hotel follows the typical avant-garde design of the other hotels in the High Tech group. It is an old building, completely renovated, which revolves around a large central courtyard giving a touch of light and open space in the center.

For its part, the Savoy Hotel Petit Palace Alfonso XII directly overlooks the famous Retiro Park. It is located in a beautiful building from the early…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

According to the Hotel Price Index (THPI) study conducted by the travel portal Trivago.es for the month of June, the hotels in Madrid are currently the second most expensive in Spain coming in at an average of €105 per night after the hotels in the autonomous region of Catalonia. This latest study confirms Catalonia and Madrid as the two areas with the most expensive hotels in Spain. Staying in a Catalan hotel costs on average €126 per night and along with the €105 a night in Madrid confirms these as the most expensive rates in the country.

These figures are closely followed by hotels prices in the Basque Country and the Balearic Islands where spending a night in a hotel will set you back on average €97. Valencia comes next with an average price of €92. The latter two regions showed the highest price increase recorded since the month of May and in the Balearic Islands hotel rates went up by 22 percent and in Valencia by 11 percent. In relation to the big cities Barcelona is once again the city with the highest hotel rates, costing on average €140 per night.

On the other hand, the cheapest hotels in Spain to stay in during the month of June are in Aragon,…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

The growth of the tourism market in Madrid in recent years has made the hotel sector in the capital of Spain increasingly more competitive. With the increase in demand comes the responsibility of improving the quality of services in order to increase customer satisfaction and the possibility of achieving the ever elusive ‘repeat’ business.

Madrid City Council wants to play its part in the improvement of the quality and professionalism of the services offered by the hotels in Madrid and has introduced a Code of Good Practice especially designed for the hotel sector. The code has already been approved by the Council and will serve as an instrument to ensure the protection of the rights of guests staying in the hotels of Madrid.

The Code is the result of a collaboration agreement signed by Madrid City Council and the Hotel Business Association of Madrid (AEHM). In this way, the hotel sector will be integrated into the “Good Practice” programme which has been developed in recent years by the Municipal Institute for Consumer Affairs. Those hotels in Madrid which join this Code of Good Practice will undertake to improve their business practices in relation to the quality and safety of the services provided for their customers. They will also commit to finding effective resolutions…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

The InterContinental hotel in Madrid, one of the most emblematic hotels in the capital of Spain, has a new owner. The Lebanese investor Toufic Aboukhater has purchased, through his company Mansion Services, a portfolio of seven hotels currently operated by the U.S. chain in various European capitals. Among them is the InterContinental De La Ville (Rome), the Hotel Carlton in Cannes (Cannes) and now the InterContinental hotel in Madrid.

The management of the hotel will remain with the hotel group, which signed a contract for 30 years, as part of its strategy to manage hotels without owning them. Five years ago, investment bank Morgan Stanley opted to diversify into the hotel sector and, in addition to the acquisition of the InterContinental Hotels it also acquired ten Hilton hotels for €556 million.  With the economic crisis, the company has chosen the opposite approach and, last February, they sold the Hilton hotel in Barcelona to Westmont Hospitality Group for €40 million.

The Hotel InterContinental Madrid, which was built on the site of the 18th Century palace of the Marquis of Merit, was the first international hotel in Madrid. Opened in 1953, the Castellana Hilton, as it was then called, was the favourite of Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Tony Curtis and…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

Last year was a record year for the hotels in Madrid. That’s according to an analysis of tourist flows from the official Spanish tourism organisation in the ‘Comunidad de Madrid’ which reveals that in 2010 Madrid had nearly ten million visitors, representing a growth of around 11.02 percent over the previous year. 2010 can therefore be considered a truly record year for tourism in Madrid in all categories.

In total 9.8 million tourists stayed in the hotels in Madrid accumulating some 18.6 million overnight stays during the year, of which 9.2 million were spent by guests from outside Spain which also represents a record number of international visitors. In addition, we must add that as the capital of Spain, the city is an extremely important national tourist destination and recorded more than five and a half million visits by Spanish tourists. These figures represent a growth of 6.1 percent in tourism to the capital from the rest of Spain when compared to the 2009 figures.

These good results from Madrid even surpass the numbers from years before the onset of the economic crisis and are the best annual figures to date. In 2010 the number of tourists exceeded the numbers from 2007 by around 500,000 and the number of overnight stays in the…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

Hotel chain Travelodge is to make a further investment in Spain by committing around 12 million euro to open its third hotel in Madrid. The hotel will be a new-build and will be located in the business park of Julián Camarillo in the north east of the city near the M40 motorway on the way to Barajas airport. The hotel will have 98 rooms and at least 37 parking spaces.

This new hotel in Madrid, which will join the Travelodge Torrelaguna and Travelodge Las Rozas, would appear to be a sign of confidence from the British budget hotel chain in the Spanish market. Construction of the new hotel to be called Travelodge ‘Santa Leonor de Madrid’ will start in August, coinciding with the opening of a yet another new Travelodge in Spain in the city of Valencia.

According to Horacio Alcalá, director of international development at Travelodge, the company has been able to continue its growth path by being able to acquire establishments in better locations at lower prices thanks to the recession. Only in 2009 did the British hotel chain announce its intention to expand into Spain with an investment of 61 million euro and the opening of three new hotels in Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.

The new Travelodge hotel in Valencia…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

The “Low Cost” hotel chain Etap has opened its latest hotel in Spain in the Vallecas area of the capital Madrid. Located in a major industrial and commercial area, Etap Madrid Vallecas has 98 rooms. The company, which currently has 9 hotels in Spain, in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Granada, Alicante, Girona, Oviedo and more recently in Malaga, will have a greater role in the country in the coming years with an expansion plan that includes the opening of 11 hotels in Spain by 2014.

The newly opened hotel in Madrid features the new generation of Etap rooms (they won the Best Interior Design Prize at the European Awards for the Best Hotel Design) which incorporate new elements of comfort such as a soft quilt, touch reading lights, more spacious showers, a larger baggage area and full length mirror.

The common areas have also been redesigned with a new reception area and breakfast room. The modern and functional design in the Etap Madrid Vallecas pays particular attention to the LED lighting. The Mediterranean spirit is reflected on the ground floor which has been painted in blue.

The Etap hotel chain is the low cost brand of the Accor hotel group, which operates mainly in Europe and provides its customers with “the best low…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

On 30 June 2010 there were 437 hotels in Madrid, representing an increase of some 5.3 % compared with the number of hotels that were operating in the capital of Spain in the first half of 2009.

When we take into consideration the full range of accommodation available in Madrid including hostels, B&Bs, apartments and camping sites, then the total number of establishments where visitors can stay when visiting this city in Spain rises to 1,712. This figure is 2.33% higher than a year ago. According to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Antonio Beteta “This shows that tourism entrepreneurs still consider Madrid a good location for investment”.

Beteta made the remarks during a conference in which he presented an analysis of the tourist figures for this area of Spain for the first six months of 2010. In this conference, the director of tourism for the Madrid area, Antonio Nieto, added that they currently have no data available on the number of hotel projects currently under development in the capital of Spain, but they are aware of the fact that some hotels still continue to open in the region of Madrid, “although some projects have been slowed or stopped due to the current economic crisis, others are going ahead according to the initial plans and…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels

InterContinental, the company that originated as a part of an airline in the 1940s, has now metamorphosed into one of the most famous hotel brands in the world. The company has recently launched a new strategy in face of the current global economic crisis and visitors to Spain can benefit from the fact that InterContinental has lowered the rates of their hotel in Madrid to attract more guests. The hotel is also now offering some new services such as a spa and gourmet restaurant, designed to enhance any stay in the capital of Spain.

The InterContinental hotel chain was born in 1946 when the owners of the airline Pan American Airways decided to open luxury hotels to accommodate their passengers in different parts of the world. The first hotel was opened in Brazil and they now have about 150 establishments in over 60 countries including Spain. In 1953 they opened a hotel in Madrid, which was the first hotel belonging to a foreign chain to be built in Spain. Over the years the hotel has been chosen by many Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra, Liz Taylor and Sophia Loren as a place of residence while they were filming on location in Spain.

The Intercontinental Madrid has 302 rooms and is located on Paseo de la Castellana, one of…Click to read more about Madrid Hotels