Renovations are moving along in Europe’s hotels. In London, the Savoy and the Four Seasons of London will reopen at the end of the year after long months behind closed doors for a complete renovation. While the economic crisis forced some hoteliers to postpone works to a better period, slow periods are often the right time to refresh the product. In Paris, the arrival of new palaces encourages investment. Of course each year the jewels of Paris’s hotel industry invest several million euros in improving their inventory. “Our clients continue to pay for a certain product, that is why we invest,” explains François Delahaye, general manager of the Plaza Athénée and Director of Operations at the Dorchester Group. “In Paris, we redid rooms at the Meurice and the bathrooms at the Plaza where we also added a Christian Dior spa’’. But the competition is stimulating and the time has come for more extensive projects such as the extension of the Bristol that got a new wing, to commit to doubling the surface area of the spa and soon the creation of a new panoramic suite. The Plaza Athénée will also expand with the creation of meeting spaces in the recently acquired contiguous buildings.The perspective of financially forcing a large number of independent hoteliers to close up shop pushed the French government to consider postponing the final date for putting the new fire safety and handicapped access standards into effect. This obligation results in costly but necessary renovations. “If these laws remain, 3,000 to 4,000 of some 18,000 family-operated hotels risk closing in the next 5 years, 30,000 jobs will be threatened either directly or indirectly and loss in turnover could reach 4 billion euros. I hope the new fire security laws will go into effect in 2015, rather than 2011,”...