Hotels: Bankruptcy – Hotel chain Achat in trouble

The Achat Hotels and the associated subsidiary Loginn Hotels are insolvent. As the company announced, it has applied for self-administration insolvency at the Mannheim district court, which ordered provisional self-administration. During the process, business operations in all 49 hotels should continue to run “unrestricted,” it said. Bookings from customers remain unchanged and salary payments for the 1,450 employees are secured.

Actually a climber

The “Bild” newspaper initially reported on the bankruptcy. Accordingly, the company was one of the fastest growing in this area. Last year it celebrated a record year and opened new hotels. In recent years, the Achat Group says it has diversified, invested in systems and structures and took over a larger hotel portfolio in 2023.

“Stress factors” Corona and inflation

According to its own statements, the company came under pressure from the consequences of the corona pandemic, inflation and price increases “across all areas of the business model”. Achat spoke of “stress factors”. The changing booking behavior of business customers and digital restructuring are also challenging. In addition: “The integration of the acquired hotel portfolio was significantly slower than planned.” The operational deficit resulting from all factors led to liquidity bottlenecks and the need for comprehensive restructuring.

The company wants to use the process to carry out extensive restructuring and remediation measures in the next few months and to realign operations in a “future-oriented” manner. In the event of self-administration insolvency, the management has the opportunity to work independently to stabilize and restructure the company with the support of a court-appointed administrator.

“The aim of the structured proprietary process is to largely preserve the company and reposition it for the future,” says the company. They now want to discuss the next steps with everyone involved – especially employees, landlords, suppliers and business partners.

Not the first bankruptcy in the industry

Several companies in the tourism sector have run into difficulties in recent months. The bankruptcy of the tour operator FTI in June was particularly in focus. Tens of thousands of customers of Germany’s third largest tour operator after Tui and Dertour were affected. According to the German Travel Insurance Fund (DRSF), the majority of customers who applied for compensation have now received it. The fund wanted to have all existing applications processed by the end of November.

We-Flytour also went bankrupt

This week, the tour operator We-Flytour, which specializes in trips to Turkey, also filed for bankruptcy. This emerges from a court order. According to the German Travel Insurance Fund, the Heilbronn-based company has canceled all package tours that have not yet started and that start up to and including December 10th. Travel after that date has not yet been affected.

The news of the bankruptcy reached around 1,500 We-Flytour customers while they were on vacation – mainly in Turkey and Egypt. The company was only founded in September 2023. The tour operator left an inquiry – among other things about the reasons for the bankruptcy – unanswered.

Through the DRSF, payments already made for package tours are protected against the organizer’s insolvency. The protection does not apply to individually booked travel components such as pure hotel bookings. There are also no refunds for flights or rental cars booked individually. The fund also takes care of the repatriation of stranded holidaymakers.