Rheinhold Weise explains why a new name for one of Munich's biggest and best known hotels was the right thing to do
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The Westin Grand Hotel in Munich |
Two massive hotels loom large in Arabella Park, a street in the elegant Munich district of Bogenhausen. But the confusion visitors may have felt in working out which Sheraton was which should now be over.
Since May 1, the Arabella Sheraton Grand has changed its name to the Westin Grand Hotel while its sister property across the street remains the Sheraton Munich Arabella Park Hotel.
"It really didn't make much sense to have two Sheratons in the one road," said Rheinhold Weise, general manager of the Westin. So we took the decision to re-name and re-brand this property which is a five-star luxury hotel."
But if the two hotels are now distanced by their different names, they still work together as one marketing operation for the conference market.
Bogenhausen is about five kilometres east of Munich's city centre and the suburb has is near one of the city's major ring roads with good connections to the Franz Josef Strauss Airport 35km. It is also just a walk away from the Englischer Gardens and their popular beer gardens.
Between them the two hotels have 1073 rooms - 627 at the Westin and 446 at the Sheraton - and 40 conference rooms, ranging from one for five to the massive ballroom in the Westin which can take 1,250 people.
It is as a conference hotel which the Westin largely promotes itself. Mr Weise said up to 35% of his guests were attending conferences while a further 30-49% was transient business travellers. "We are selling both hotels together as one conference destination. There is one conference team which is responsible for both properties," he said.
So a deal can include guests using one hotel for the conference and the other - or both - for the delegates. It would all be art of the one agreement.
Mr Weise said the conference business was holding up well in the present economic circumstances. "It is less than in previous years but we have just had a strong month after two weak months. But the rest of the year, September, October, November are looking quite good but not all the contracts have been signed so we could get cancellations. But it is looking okay," Mr Weise said.
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The lobby of the Westin Munich |
One thing he had noticed was that the smaller and medium-sized events had dropped off more than the larger ones. "The pharma market is still very active and we have bookings for huge meetings from some of the stock market listed companies. But it is the little and medium conferences where the market has been weak," he said.
He said conferences seem to be about the same length as last year
But for the corporate traveller, it is a different story. "Many companies have frozen their travel budgets and we have seen that that has had an effect on our business," he said. Mr Weise cited the huge Siemens company which has used the hotel heavily but has currently cut spending with a resultant drop in overnight stays at the Westin.
"The transient business is much less than last year but at the moment we are getting good leisure business form guests from the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. We have picked up business from them. We are still getting groups from Asia but that is also less than last year," he said.
Mr Weise has worked in the hotel trade for nearly 30 years and he says these are the worst conditions he has ever seen. "It is different from 2002-2003 which saw the after effects of 9/11. That was a local problem for the US but this, of course, is worldwide," he said.
After training in Germany, he began his career with InterContinental hotels for whom he worked in Germany and Switzerland. He joined the Arabella group in 1989 and held many different posts for them.
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Westin Munich Presidential Suite |
He worked for the Arabella Sheraton in 2000 as executive assistant manager and then moved to its Dusseldorf property as general manager for three years. He then returned to the Arabella Sheraton and became its general manager in January, 2007.
His outlook is, he says, is "still a bit pessimistic." He adds: "I don't think we will see a change in conditions this year." He said talks with business leaders in Munich suggested they did not expect to see much improvement in 2010 and that the recovery would start in 2011.
In the meantime, it remained for him and his staff to up their game for their guests. "We need to change ourselves. So we have trained our staff so they can anticipate our guests' needs, so they have an instinctive approach to the guests. That is the most important thing. The situation is completely different."