John Kent, founder of Med Hotels and chief executive of youtravel.com, Andreas Vasiliou, managing director of Amathus UK, and David Howells, executive chairman of Western & Oriental, are all on the board of Aquis Hotels and Resorts.
The upmarket hotel group has acquired five properties, three in Corfu, one in Kos and one in Crete, and plans to increase its portfolio significantly in the next 12 months.
Backed by international funds and capital investments, the company was created with the objective to develop a chain of upmarket hotels in Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Egypt.
Overseeing the day-to-day running of Aquis Hotels and Resorts is managing director Panagiotis Katsaridis, a former journalist on Greek television network ALPHA.
He said: ‘In comparison with the western Mediterranean, especially Spain, which already has developed hotel chains, hotel groups and franchise brands opportunities in the last decade, the eastern Mediterranean has been left behind in comparison, this is why we’ve launched Aquis Hotels and Resorts.’
The five properties join the Aquis portfolio on 1 November and will be operational for summer 2009, all offering upmarket all-inclusive holidays.
See also:
Former Worldspan VP joins youtravel.com (14/04/08)
W&O planning more acquisitions (25/03/08)