The business of travelling for work
New hotel chain to focus on keeping you fit on the road
KEEPING FIT and healthy on the road is always difficult and InterContinental Hotels is recognising the healthy lifestyle trend with a new midscale brand geared to the health-conscious traveller. Even Hotels will help you keep to a fitness and nutrition routine while travelling.
The focus of Even Hotels will be on exercise, eat, work and rest. Each property will have a gym, onsite fitness advisory services, group exercise classes and nutritious menus. Guest rooms will have coat racks that double as pull-up bars and exercise mats for in-room workouts. IHG is planning on investing $150 million on developing the brand with a mixture of new-builds and conversion of existing hotels. It plans to open more than 100 Even Hotels in the next five years, mainly in North America, with the first being announced in June. See evenhotels.com.
All business to Hong Kong
NEW ROUTES appearing ahead of the summer timetable changeover at the end of March include an all business class service from Gatwick to Hong Kong with Hong Kong Airlines. Using a 116-seat configuration on an A330-200, the daily flagship service will operate overnight each way with 34 flatbed and 82 regular business class seats. Fares from €1,850 return, hkairlines.com.
Turkish Airlines braves Mogadishu
SOMALIA’S YEARS of unrest have served as a deterrent for international airlines but Turkish Airlines has become the first carrier in decades to fly to Mogadishu (MGQ). The service began on March 6th and will be a twice weekly extension of the Istanbul to Khartoum service. The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on the announcement that he “wanted to challenge the idea that Somalia was a no-go area”.