Europe

The Crowne Plaza Lyon - Cité Internationale hotel is due to open its doors in February. It will offer 163 rooms and five suites in Lyon's 6th arrondissement, just a stone's throw from the Convention Centre. The hotel, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, will also feature a lounge bar (Le Backstage) and the restaurant...

Identity card Currency: the Swiss franc (CHF). 1 euro = 1.23 Swiss francs (November 2013). Area code: +41 (Switzerland); (0)43 or (0)44 (Zurich); (0)61 (Basel); (0)22 (Geneva). Getting there LYRIA combines high-speed travel with "eco-conscious" travel. The Franco-Swiss TGV provides up to six daily services from Paris to Basel and Geneva.

Louvre Hotels is looking forward to major expansion in German-speaking countries. The French hotel group recently signed an agreement with German property developer Arcus, under which it plans to develop 26 co-branded hotels in Germany, Switzerland and Austria by 2020. The investment is estimated at €160 million, and will involve the creation of...

The credo of the new HTL chain can be summed up in a frugal, no-nonsense slogan: "less is more". The best location at the best price, with efficient digital solutions and functional design: according to the first details unveiled by Scandic, this is what HTL customers will be able to expect from their...

How is the holding company project with Frequent Flyer Travel Paris progressing? Jordy Staelen - The merger is moving in the right direction, and we're going to meet our target of finalising our project by mid-December. Our management teams are holding discussions upstream to identify the synergies to be exploited, and there are many of them, both for us and...

With a hotel infrastructure boasting over 50,000 beds in 4- and 5-star establishments, and conference centres suitable for organising corporate events (5 centres with a total capacity of 4,000 people), the island of Tenerife is determined to attract a growing number of French visitors to the Canary archipelago. With this in mind...

The new flights between the French and Catalan capitals will leave Paris-CDG airport at 9.55am and 7.25pm. On the return leg, business travellers will leave Barcelona at 7.30am and 5pm. The route will be operated by Airbus A319. Operations will begin on 30 March. [gallery exclude="33831"]

The luxury hotel brand Rosewood is making its debut in the British capital, within a graceful Belle Époque mansion in High Holborn. The interiors of Rosewood London and its 262 rooms and 44 suites were designed by Tony Chi and Associates. The hotel, which opened in mid-October, also boasts eleven meeting rooms, including...

The future of Marseille is just a ten-minute walk from the Old Port. Its HQ: the Joliette docks, a long series of warehouses where bright offices have taken the place of containers. It's a radical change of destiny for a district that until now had symbolised the city's industrial and port history. The...

Why set up a French branch of the GBTA? Carole Poillerat - On a global scale, the GBTA is ahead of the game on many issues, it knows how to spot new trends in the sector, and that's what the GBTA is going to bring to France. My job is to develop this purchasing maturity that we don't necessarily have in France.

After Paris-CDG and the arrival and departure lounges at London-Heathrow airport, it is now Frankfurt airport's turn to see the Maple Leaf, the lounge concept already present in some twenty airports served by Air Canada. The new business lounge covers an area of 726m² in terminal 1 at...

The new Flex fare announced by Lyria on Tuesday 15 October offers "unlimited flexibility at a guaranteed price". In concrete terms, business travellers can board the train preceding or following the one indicated on their ticket. The ticket is also exchangeable and fully refundable up to the departure time of the Lyria TGV, then refunded...

The new logo presented by Iberia on Tuesday will appear on Spanish tarmacs from the end of November, on the five new Airbus A330s which will then be added to the airline's fleet. Unsurprisingly, the red and yellow of the Spanish flag remain at the heart of this new visual identity, which gives pride of place...

The study published on 27 September by HRS and EPSA compares the feedback from 284 people in charge of travel budgets and 631 travellers and travel assistants. In particular, it highlights the fact that, apart from the large CAC 40 companies, which enjoy good visibility, 15% of those questioned did not know their...

You were appointed head of Europcar in France in January. What are your main objectives in this position? Eric Dodin - My main mission is to develop the company through profitable growth. Europcar is a very fine company with some excellent assets, but it probably has the capacity to produce a lot...

"Pay only for what you need": the logic highlighted with the development of ancillary charges within low-cost airlines, and then on a large scale with traditional airlines, still makes sense. Even with business customers. This is illustrated by the latest initiative from British Airways, which is extending its "Baggage...

Business travellers will be able to reach St Petersburg every weekday via the UIA network from 28 April 2014, via Kiev. Departure from Paris CDG will be at 13:25, with final arrival in St Petersburg at 22:40. There will be a two-hour stopover in Kiev. On the return journey, Ukraine International Airlines will leave St Petersburg...

The new Thalys link between Amsterdam will operate twice a day. The route will successively serve Lille, Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Schiphol and Amsterdam, for a total journey time of around 2 hours 40 minutes: all direct connections that previously required a change of train. "We know (...) the dynamism of the people of Lille and their high expectations...

A strategic location, a respected brand and top-of-the-range meeting facilities: the future Crowne Plaza London - Albert Embankment has everything it takes to establish itself as one of the new meeting points for business customers in London. On 25 September, the IHG Group announced that it had signed a contract with...

Business travellers are seeing an increase in the number of options available from the EuroAirport. Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg airport will be linked to Krakow from the end of October, while the new easyJet flight to Seville will start on 18 December. The airline will be operating up to two flights a week between the EuroAirport and the Andalusian capital, and will be strengthening its...