The finalisation of the accounts for the 2001 financial year at
Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts (MH&R) has shown clearly that
this international hotel group only fell marginally short of its
last year result, despite the difficult situation in the tourist in-dustry
after the September 11
th
terrorist attacks.
Although total sales including leased and management opera-tions
was below last year’s level at CHF 409.5 million (com-pared
with CHF 455 million in 2000), in light of the circum-stances
profit at the EBIT level can be said to have held up
above expectations at CHF 14.1 million (2000: CHF 14.7 mil-lion).
This amount excludes the operating profits of the hotel
real estate companies. It even proved possible to raise the
EBIT margin on consolidated sales of CHF 180,2 million, from
7.7 to 7.8 percent.
Occupancy rates in Europe came to 66.3 percent, and in the
Group as a whole to 62 percent, and it is satisfying to record
that the average room rate over the Group as a whole was
maintained at last year’s level. This is attributable to a strict
Yield Management policy which enabled the profit situation to
be managed more effectively. In Germany, for instance,
REVPAR (Revenue per available room) rose by 1.8 percentage
points although the market as a whole recorded a decline of
0.8 percentage points.
“As a flexible management team we were able to react directly
to the tourism crisis and establish a cost-saving plan, which re-sulted
in lowering our break-even points in many properties
without compromising on our strict quality standards” explains
Jean Gabriel Pérès, President & CEO of Mövenpick Hotels &
Resorts. “This plan was introduced successfully all over the
world and made a decisive contribution to our good results. Moreover, we were less affected than other firms who are
more heavily committed to the American market. Our most
important markets are still Germany and Switzerland. There
were setbacks in Egypt and Jordan but prospects for 2002 are
improving. Bookings for Easter are picking up again”.
Currency exchange-rates also affected revenue adversely. The
soft Euro and the weakening of the Egyptian Pound had an im-pact
of CHF 19 million versus last year`s sales.
“Taking all the adverse circumstances of 2001 into account,
Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts can regard its performance as
satisfactory”, emphasises Bruno Schöpfer, CEO Mövenpick
Group.
MH&R’s expansion policy was pursued further as planned in
2001. In addition to signing a large number of contracts for ho-tels
in key European cities, the Mediterranean region, and the
Middle East, several new hotels were also opened with great
success. One was the Group’s first hotel on the Italian market,
the Mövenpick Hotel Central Park in Rome, and another was a
top-quality resort hotel, the Mövenpick Ulysse Palace & Thal-asso
on the Tunisian island of Djerba. Further examples of ad-ditions
to the MH&R portfolio were a 5-star hotel in Tangiers
(Morocco) and a 4-star business hotel in Doha/Qatar. Another
19 hotels and resorts are in the development phase for the
next few years.
Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts operates 42 hotels in 10 countries and fo-cuses
on two hotel types. The business and conference hotel and the
holiday resort, catering to the respective needs of the guests. Business
hotels are located in city centres or at airports and offer an optimal in-frastructure
for the business traveller. The resorts are situated in typical
holiday destinations. The hotel group is present in Germany, Switzer-land,
the Netherlands, Italy, the Czech Republic, Jordan, Egypt, Mo-rocco,
Tunisia and Qatar.
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