As summer approaches, everyone is keen to see what form these holidays, the longest for the year in many countries, will take. Uncertainty about the re-opening of borders, the availability of international flights, has triggered large scale campaigns, both at country government levels, as well as at hotel levels, for staycations – visiting and discovering one’s own country. For example, the French government, a country which traditionally relies on heavily on large international tourist numbers, has mobilized the government media to promote a different region or village of France after the daily 13:00 news, one of the peak television viewership. Sensitizing the population to the diversity and the beauty of their own country, the initiative, beyond offering a holiday solution, aims at driving business to regions to be able to…

As a result of the corona pandemic, 100’s of thousands of hotel properties find themselves in financial distress. But as hotels properties are hard to repurpose, they have no choice but to re-open and redefine the dialogue between the hotel owner and operator to find a way forward together. Hotel owners are the hardest hit in this crisis and need to assess the possibilities of restructuring the debt of their properties.  Key to this will be benchmarking:    How is the hotel performing compared to your comp set? What are the prospects of recovery? What is the quality of the Team running the property? Do we believe in the Team or do we need to replace them? We believe that demand will return in June, initially domestic travel but with further…

Seven out of ten hotel rooms in the United States are empty, and the industry has lost nearly 4 million jobs and more than $21 billion in revenue. Where does the hospitality sector go from here? The road to recovery is going to be a long one according to Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta. “A full recovery will take time and it could take several years to return to the hotel demand levels we experienced in 2019,” he said in an earnings call last week. Hilton posted revenues of $1.9 billion in the first quarter, down 13% from last year, and net income fell to $18 million from $158 million. “COVID-19 has created challenges that our industry has never encountered before,” Nassetta added. Other major hotel companies including Marriott, have noted the…

In our previous article, we showcased Warren Buffet’s decision to sell all his airline stocks in the face of the pandemic. To many, the decision of this investment guru to give up on the travel and tourism industry, came as a sign of defeat. It may have scared you. At Tratok, we prefer to look at the word crisis in its original definition, from the Greek “turning point in a disease”. We believe in the future of travel, but we know the present diseased model needs to be disrupted, revolutionized for it to succeed. As one of the fastest-growing industries, travel and tourism had already provided US$ 2.6 trillion to Global GDP in 2016 and indirect contributions amounting to an excess of US$ 7.6 trillion – that is 292 million…

Following the advice of our Legal General Counsel in reference to AML-CFT Law16.1(b); AML-CFT Decision24.2-4, 27.7, 28.1-2, 29.4, 37.1-3 as outlined by the central bank of the UAE, Tratok Ltd is locking decentralized exchanges out of the Tratok ecosystem. Having contributed less than 0.04% of activity on average over the last 12 months, we do not expect this to have much of an impact. This was a decision taken by Group Risk following a careful review of the law's application as well as previous case studies where the law has been neglected. As a licensed entity, Tratok has a responsibility of "going concern" as a business and will continue to adhere to all applicable laws and regulations

In a historic address to the nation on Monday, the President of France Emmanuel Macron highlighted the importance of knowing how to renew oneself in the face of the changing realities of the world. In his explanation to the French people and the international community in general, he addressed the mistakes we have made, and the inefficiencies we had tolerated and how we needed to use this time wisely to correct these, to be able to evolve into a cleaner and better world.  Nowhere is this reality greater than in the travel and tourism industry, the greatest victim of the international travel bans and closure of airspace. In business, when the market is great, it's a good time to engage in commerce and business generation. When the market is terrible…

By Nicholas Paillart, Chief Marketing Officer – Tratok. As the hospitality sector faces an existentialist crisis unprecedented in its history, one which has not only crashed occupancy, ADR and RevPAR levels to all-time lows, it is important to reach out to the hospitality industry to understand their views on the current situation, how they have responded to the pandemic and their thoughts on the market moving forward. Colliers International conducted a survey which the Research and Marketing Team at Tratok are pleased to analyze for you. Survey participants are from more than 25 cities in MENA. The majority of investments owned by respondents are in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. 65% of participants own operational hotels. The balance have hotels under development. As a result, to the…