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HOTELS

New Gstaad palace named hotel of the year

Less than nine months after opening, The Hotel Alpina in Gstaad was named Swiss luxury hotel of the year by Gault Millau, the guidebook company.

Published: 26 August 2013 22:27 CEST
New Gstaad palace named hotel of the year
Photo: Preferred Hotels & Resorts

An award ceremony was held on Monday at the first five-star hotel built in a century at the upscale mountain resort town in the canton of Bern, the SDA news agency reported.

A palace built with modern technology, incorporating plenty of wood and limestone rock, it opened in December at a cost of 300 million francs.

The owners are Jean-Claude Mimran, known for having made a fortune in African sugar, and Marcel Bach, a local real estate developer.

The 56-room hotel features a 14-seat private cinema, a spa, swimming pool, kids room, wine room, two bars, three restaurants — including a sushi bar, cigar lounge and luxury suites.

Click here to have a look inside the luxury hotel

The Panorama Suite, which rents for close to 20,000 francs a night in the peak season, is a two-level penthouse with its own spa that includes a steam room, sauna, terrace hot-tub and a massage room.

The hotel is located in the Oberbort neighbourhood of Gstaad on the site of a previous building that was demolished illegally in 1995, SDA reported.

After a long legal battle, Switzerland’s supreme court gave the go-ahead for the new building to be built in 2008.

The Alpina’s award marked the second time a Gstaad hotel received the Swiss hotel of the year honour from Gault Millau.

In 2003, Le Grand Bellevue won the honour.

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HOTELS

German hotels can advertise cheaper prices than Booking.com, court rules

Hotel booking portal Booking.com cannot prevent hotels in Germany from advertising lower room prices on their own websites, a court ruled on Tuesday.

Published: 18 May 2021 18:46 CEST
Updated: 19 May 2021 09:13 CEST
German hotels can advertise cheaper prices than Booking.com, court rules
Holidaymakers in Schleswig-Holstein on May 17th. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Daniel Bockwoldt

The Supreme Court upheld an earlier decision by the German cartel authority that banning hotels from advertising lower prices on their own websites was “not compatible with cartel law”.

The Federal Cartel Authority had in 2015 prohibited Booking.com from continuing to apply so-called “narrow” best-price clauses in the country.

Under the clauses, hotels were obliged to always offer Booking.com their lowest room prices, maximum room capacity and most favourable booking and cancellation conditions available on all online and offline booking channels.

Booking.com had successfully challenged the decision at a higher regional court in 2019, but the Bundeskartellamt then launched an appeal.

Andreas Mundt, president of the Bundeskartellamt, welcomed Tuesday’s ruling and said best-price clauses could “hinder competition between platforms”.

“They can work to the disadvantage of the providers – such as hoteliers in this case – and mean higher prices for consumers,” he said.

Amazon had already abandoned similar clauses for merchants on its Marketplace platform in 2013 after intervention by the cartel authority.

The regulator has also banned Booking.com rival HRS from using best-price clauses.

In other European countries, best-price clauses have been prohibited by law.

Mundt said the Supreme Court decision had “paved the way for us to take a differentiated view of such clauses depending on the industry and market position of the platform”.

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