Several hotel projects planned in Hamburg this year

The plans foresee around 30 new hotels in the coming years with around a dozen in 2020 alone with well-known chains expanding their businesses. The British hotel Premier Inn is laying plans for another hotel in St. Pauli after opening its second hotel in Germany on the site of the former Spiegel building last February. The Novum Hotel Group plans to open a niu Rough hotel in Horn this year after opening the niu Keg in Wandsbek last April.

Locations away from the city centre are becoming popular among international hotel chains. An Ibis Styles hotel, for instance, is being built in Fuhle – the main street in Barmbek – with 188 rooms and catering facilities. The three-star hotel by the French Accor Group has been designed as a non-smoking hotel and will offer typical Ibis Styles services such as breakfast buffet and swift WLAN.

The Hamburg Centro-Hotel Group is focusing on Bergedorf where plans for their new budget hotel Ninetynine are being laid. The hotel provider in the middle-class segment currently operates 80 hotels in Germany and Austria. Woolworth previously operated one of its most successful German stores on Weidenbaumsweg near Bergedorf Castle and is now building a hotel there with around 2,000 square metres of retail space. The hotel is due to open early in 2021. The trend towards combining hotel and retail – as successfully practiced by Prizeotel and Lidl in St. Pauli is gaining momentum.

The concept behind the Raphael Hotel Wälderhaus, which opened on the Elbe island in Wilhelmsburg has also proven successful. The combination of forest exhibition and ecological hotel concept, which scooped the ADAC Tourism Prize in 2017, has been well received by tourists and local residents alike. While the 82 hotel rooms are named after local tree species, the in-house restaurant Wilhelms cooks “to the rhythm of nature” and focuses on sustainability. Most of the seasonal products come from a maximum 100-kilometre radius. Plans for an extension to the three-star-superior hotel in 2020 on Wilhelmsburger Inselpark are also being laid. The rerouted Wilhelmsburger Reichstrasse is likely to boost development in the district. Verdant areas in the park will grow together and four new residential quarters will be created.

The CCH – Congress Center Hamburg is due to reopen in late August and should stir up even more international interest in Hamburg. The CCH will become one of Europe’s largest congress centres with 12,000 m² of exhibition space, 12,000 m² of foyer area and 12,000 seats in up to 50 halls. Its 50-year history of Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, Exhibitions (MICE) is now aligned for the future.

Hamburg boosted its reputation as a modern, global trade fair and congress location when it hosted the Rotary International Convention 2019. “After the Lions Club International Convention 2013, we were again able to prove that our city is very well able to map and stage all aspects of such large-scale conventions,” said Michel Molenda, Head of Corporate Communications Hamburg Convention Bureau of Hamburg Tourismus GmbH. Tourism is Hamburg’s second most important industry after the port and the share of MICE guests is considerable. Guests in the MICE sector account for around 23 per cent of all overnight stays, according to the fundamental study Business and Leisure Travel in Hamburg from 2016.
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