Novum Hotel Aldea Berlin (Picture: Novum Hospitality)
In the latest instalment of our exclusive series, we explore what the TOPHOTELPROJECTS construction database tells us about Novum Hospitality and its hotel development pipeline.
Covid19 has dealt a devastating blow to Europe’s hospitality industry. The widespread rollout of lockdowns, travel bans and social-distancing measures has forced countless hotels to temporarily close their doors or reinvent themselves as hospitals, emergency accommodation for healthcare workers and so on.
In common with the rest of the sector, Novum Hospitality, which has 186 hotels across 67 European destinations, has had to adapt quickly to the changing realities of operating during a pandemic. Founded by Nader Etmenan in 1988, the family-owned hotel group is behind a varied portfolio of three- and four-star properties operated under brands like Novum Hotels, Select Hotels, the niu and Yggotel, and has been growing rapidly in recent years.
Yet the Hamburg-headquartered company has been forced to temporarily close some of its hotels due to the current travel restrictions, according to a statement on its website. “We are confident that we will be able to make our holistic accommodation offer available to you again as soon as possible and look forward to welcoming you to all our locations in Europe as usual in the future,” it added.
Novum Hospitality is continuing to build new hotels
It’s clear that coronavirus has caused plenty of short-term operational issues for Novum Hospitality, but to what extent has the outbreak affected its long-term expansion plans? Well, our exclusive dive into the data held in the TOPHOTELPROJECTS construction database suggests the impact has been exceptionally limited so far, with 39 of its projects still in progress, one scheme on hold and one development cancelled as of 2 June 2020:
Incidentally, we can also see that the vast majority of the company’s growth is focused on the Niu brand, which has a remarkable 36 projects in progress. This puts it way ahead of Novum Hotels, where there are just three live projects.
Germany’s response to Covid19 is key for Novum Hospitality
It should be pointed out that most of Novum Hospitality’s upcoming projects are located in Germany, where the Covid19 infection rate has been significantly lower than in other major European economies like France, Spain and the UK. It may well be that the company’s ability to realise all of these schemes is dependent on authorities across Germany managing to contain the outbreak’s spread effectively in the weeks and months to come.
Nevertheless, the fact that 95% of Novum Hospitality’s projects are still in progress despite Covid19 surely bodes well for the European hotel industry as a whole, and offers a welcome glimmer of light for those working in the sector during this extraordinarily turbulent time.
With +150 hotels and more than 24,000 hotel rooms in 65 locations in Europe, the family-run NOVUM Hospitality is ranked among the biggest hotel groups in Germany.
