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Choice Hotels International has applied pressure on Wyndham Hotels & Resorts in its continued bid to acquire the Parsippany, N.J.-based company, asking via a news release that Wyndham management “engage in good faith discussions so that shareholders of both companies can benefit from the compelling combination.”

Ahead of Wyndham’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts this morning, the company published an investor presentation outlining its rationale for rejecting Choice’s offer, citing risk to Wyndham shareholders, and calling it “an opportunistic attempt to take advantage of point-in-time stock price fluctuations,” among other factors.

On Oct., 20, Choice went public with its bid to acquire Wyndham, which would result in a combined entity with approximately 16,500 hotels and 1.48 million hotel rooms. In terms of room count, a combined company would be just behind Marriott International’s tally of approximately 1.52 million rooms. Wyndham’s board of directors rejected the offer, calling it “underwhelming.”

Long known for its fragmented hotel industry, with domestic families dominating ownership, Italy is beginning to embrace domestic and international brands, although independents still rule the roost, according to Claudia Bisignani, head of hotels and hospitality for Italy at business advisory JLL.

Change likely is spurred by positive post-pandemic performance metrics. Data from CoStar, shows Italy’s hotel average daily rate was €271.84 ($284.62) in June and €263.89 in July. By contrast, Spain’s hotel ADR was €156.24 in June and €168.64 in July, or 43% and 36% of Italy’s hotel ADR in the same months.

“Average daily rate keeps on growing, even if occupancy is almost stalled now,” Vera Roselli, account manager for Italy at STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics division, said. “Demand has grown. Italy still attracts international tourism. … Italy is rich, in that sense.”

Two European hotel firms, PPHE Hotel Group and Scandic Hotels Group AB, posted robust numbers in their respective third-quarter 2023 earnings reports. Executives at Guernsey, Channel Islands-based PPHE said revenue in year-on-year numbers increased 8.8% to 141 million pounds sterling ($171 million), “driven by strong occupancy growth, which narrowed the gap with 2019 levels.” Revenue per available room in the period increased 10.3% to £136.70 ($165.71), helped by “top-line performance in the [United Kingdom] and The Netherlands.”

Scandic executives said for the period July 1 to Sept. 30, the Stockholm-based hotel firm saw revenue increase 5.2% year over year to 6.3 billion Swedish krona ($565 million).

“Scandic is continuing to make progress in increasing growth and has gradually become a more efficient and profitable company,” CEO Jens Mathiesen said. “With strong cash flows and historically low indebtedness, we are maintaining a high pace in developing Scandic to leverage all opportunities to further consolidate our leading position in the Nordics.”

U.S. hotel performance for the week ending Oct. 21 saw slight increases in average daily rate and revenue per available room, with the former increasing 3.8% in year-on-year numbers to $165.32 and the latter increasing 2.9% to $114.04, but occupancy took a small dip, falling 0.8% to 69%, according to data from STR, CoStar’s hotel analytics division. Of the top 25 markets, Las Vegas posted the highest year-over-year ADR and RevPAR numbers, with the former increasing 20.3% to $257.42 and the latter increasing 23.5% fall to $229.57. Miami saw the steepest RevPAR decline in the week, dropping 12.3% to $133.01.

The Canadian hotel industry saw for this same period improvement in all three major performance metrics, with occupancy increasing 2.2% to 72.8%, ADR increasing 7.5% to $197.41 Canadian dollars ($142.94) and RevPAR increasing 9.8% to CA$143.71 ($104.06). The province of British Columbia posted the highest ADR percentage rise, up 11.7% to CA$229.63 ($166.27), and the province of Alberta posted the highest RevPAR percentage rise, up 16.5% to CA$101.88 ($73.77).

Geneva, Switzerland-based hotel firm Kempinski Hotels appointed its new chief financial officer, Stuart Dickie, who also receives a place on the company’s management board. He previously had financial roles at both Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts.

Earlier this week, TTG Asia, quoting and translating a German-language article in Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, said CEO Bernold Schroeder will be leaving Kempinski next April when his current contract expires, but no confirmation or denial has been forthcoming from the company.

Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts promoted Adrian Messerli to president, hotel operations, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Messerli has held various roles at the Canadian firm since arriving in 2005 as fine dining manager. His most recent role was as regional vice president and general manager, Four Seasons Hotel Madrid.

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