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The leading Israeli hotel chain, Fattal Hotels, is taking over 12 hotels in Israel with more than 3,100 beds. These include all of the hotels belonging to the Sheraton group as well as 3 hotels belonging to the Accor group. The sum involved in the takeover is somewhere in the region of 175 million euros. The aim of the strategy is to rebrand the majority of the hotels along with the Golden Tulip hotels, already part of the portfolio, as Leonardo Hotels. Leonardo Hotels is set to become the leading brand in Israel and is continuing to expand extensively across Europe.
The following hotels have been absorbed into the portfolio:
– Sheraton City Tower Ramat Gan – 167 rooms
– Sheraton-Moria Plaza Tel Aviv (ex Sheraton Moria Tel Aviv) – 336 rooms
– Mercure Bat Yam – 116 suites
– Sheraton Plaza Jerusalem (ex Sheraton Plaza Jerusalem) – 260 rooms
– Moria Classis Jerusalem (ex Novotel Jerusalem) – 397 rooms
– Sheraton Ganei Moria Jerusalem – 185 rooms
– Moria Classic Dead Sea (ex Novotel Dead Sea) – 280 rooms
– Sheraton Moria Plaza Dead Sea (ex Sheraton Moria Dead Sea) – 215 rooms
– Sheraton Moria Plaza Eilat (ex Sheraton Eilat) – 301 rooms
– Sheraton Herods Eilat – 468 rooms
– Sheraton Moria Plaza Tiberia (ex Sheraton Tiberia) – 258 rooms
– Sheraton Ganei Moria Tiberia – 198 rooms
Two hotels in Israel are already being run as Leonardo hotels: the ‘Leonardo Hotel Negev’ in Beer Sheva and the ‘Leonardo Hotel Haifa’ in Haifa. The first hotel in the ‘Leonardo Boutique’ range is also due to open its doors this week, on 26 July, in Tel Aviv.
Further openings in Germany are also imminent: the first four-star Superior Hotel ‘Leonardo Royal Hotel Berlin’ is set to open its doors on 14 August 2009. The ‘Leonardo Hotel Berlin’ near the Kurfuerstendamm opens on 1 August 2009. Further projects in Berlin and Munich are expected to follow in 2010 and 2011. The beginning of this week saw the takeover of a small hotel at Hamburg airport: the Leonardo Airport Hotel Hamburg.
The Fattal hotel chain began 12 years ago as a management company with one hotel and now owns 31 hotels in Israel and 32 in Western Europe. This takeover consolidates the group’s dominant position as the number one hotel chain in Israel with more than 20% of the market’s total room capacity. Currently, the hotel chain owns a total of more than 60 hotels and in excess of 12,000 rooms.
Leonardo Hotels is the European Division of Fattal Hotels, founded in 1998 by David Fattal. Leonardo Hotels has been present on the German market since 2007 and currently operates over 30 hotels in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Israel and plans are afoot to open up in other attractive locations across Europe. The company’s head office is in Berlin.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
