ArabellaSheraton Hotelmanagement GmbH - a joint venture company between Starwood Hotels & Resorts and the Schoerghuber Group - and IBEKA AG have signed a management contract for a new hotel in Wuerzburg, Germany, scheduled to open in the summer of 2005. The future 150-room establishment will be marketed as ArabellaSheraton Hotel Wuerzburg.

Construction of the 58-meter tall hotel tower - a € 25 million investment - started in late 2002. The ArabellaSheraton Hotel Wuerzburg will be centrally located just a few minutes` walking distance from the historical town center and the main train station of this fourth-largest city in Bavaria. It will have over 150 rooms and suites on a total of 17 floors. Its amenities will also include a restaurant on the ground floor; a wellness area with a pool, sauna, and fitness room plus a conference area of approximately 500 square meters. The commercial building adjacent to the hotel, which offers some 3,500 square meters of office and warehousing space, will be occupied in October 2004 by 250 employees of the Siemens company.

Stefan Buttler from Planwerk Architects is in charge of construction of the hotel tower.

Wuerzburg, is city in Lower Franconia, Germany, with an historical background of 1300 years. With a population of almost 140,000, it is the northernmost major city of Bavaria. Surrounded by the low mountain ranges of Steigerwald, Rhon, and Spessart, the city on the river Main is distinguished by its wealth of historical monuments and its wide variety of cultural offerings. As the seat of Germany`s three largest wineries Wuerzburg attracts tourists throughout the year from all corners of the globe. The city`s largest employer is the Julius-Maximilians University, which has gained international renown through its research and teaching in the field of biotechnology. Over the past few years, numerous companies from the field of biomedicine have chosen Wuerzburg as their headquarters. The city has more than 600,000 overnight stays and welcomes 2.5 million day visitors a year. The number of convention and congress guests roughly equals the number of vacationers.

We are honored to have been selected by IBEKA AG to manage this new hotel, said Roeland Vos, President of Europe, Africa and Middle East Division of Starwood Hotels & Resorts. It will be a perfect complement to our existing portfolio in Germany and will be attractive to business travelers and vacationers alike, thanks to its high quality. As the hotel operator, we will focus our considerable marketing resources and management experience in support of IBEKA`s real estate goals

Juergen Spilker, Director of IBEKA AG, added: The partnership with this internationally renowned hotel company allows us to benefit from its link with the world`s most advanced reservation system. At the same time, we can ensure the competent global marketing of our quality product.

ArabellaSheraton Hotelmanagement GmbH is a joint venture of the Munich-based Schoerghuber Corporate Group and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. The ArabellaSheraton Group now includes a total of 33 establishments in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Majorca, and South Africa, its three brands being ArabellaSheraton Hotels & Resorts, The Luxury Collection, and Four Points Hotels.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with more than 740 properties in more than 80 countries and 105,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. With internationally renowned brands, Starwood is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchiser of hotels and resorts including: St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, W brands, as well as the German joint-venture company of Starwood and the Schoerghuber Group, the ArabellaSheraton Hotelmanagement GmbH. For more information, please visit www.starwood.com and www.starwood.com/pressclub