Top International Hotels

Company History

Medienhafen Düsseldorf

 

In 1982, by the initiative of Hans R. Müller, a group of hotels was brought together, in order to profit from centralised sales activities & reservations, under the umbrella of a hotel consortia.


International reservations by then were handled through UTELL INTERNATIONAL and various partners throughout Europe.
TOP International Hotels was established with a partnership of an existing group, named Welcome Chic Hotels in Switzerland, and in the year 1986 a separate operation under the name of TOP became active in Switzerland as well. Personal Service, highest knowledge of the international markets, long term partnerships and training/information, were the guide-lines of TOP from the beginning on, until today.

The continuing expansion of the company within Europe resulted in more than 200 hotel members in the home countries of Germany and Switzerland, and in all major countries & destinations in Europe. Offices were operated in Düsseldorf and Zürich, as well as in Oslo, Prague, Beirut, and Milan.

During the years 1995 until 1998 the company introduced their own reservation system TOP REZ, with an excellent partnership with Pegasus Solutions and UTELL INTERNATIONAL (for voice bookings), and introduced and promoted their own private label under the code: "TP".

Following this in 1998, TOP International Hotels in Switzerland merged with the former partner group: Welcome Chic Hotels, which resulted in the largest and leading hotel chain in Switzerland with over 80 Hotels.

Continuing growth and the request of the market situation and member hotels, made it essential to increase the services of the company, which at this time still offered the structure of a hotel consortia only. Following this a decision was taken to enlarge the existing services into the segments of hotel franchise & management.

Negotiations with other chains, finalized in a joint-venture with GOLDEN TULIP HOTELS, INNS & RESORTS in the year 2002. Keeping and expanding both brands: TOP INTERNATIONAL Hotels for consortia and GOLDEN TULIP HOTELS, INNS & RESORTS for franchising, brought the two groups together under the new company name: Golden Tulip Top - Hospitality Group -.

Beginning year 2004 the TOP-consortia Hotels rates 150 properties in Europe, whilst Golden Tulip-franchise Hotels quote 250 in Europe and around the world.

The new brand TOP City&CountryLine (TOP CCL) was created in 2003 and represents the TOP exclusive line. It lists "Private First Class & Luxury Hotels" in Germany and neighbouring Europe.


After 3 month of preperation TOP welcomes the new joint venture partner FAMILOTEL in 2006. The company represents 50 hotels in the three and four star cate­gory throughout 5 countries in Euro­pe. They are mainly based in beautiful and attractive leisure destinations. The concept is focused on holiday stays for parents with children in especially family friendly qualified hotels.

Furthermore in 2006 TOP INTERNATIONAL finalized in a joint-venture with VCH-Verband Christlicher Hoteliers e.V. which has been operating on the hotel market for over 100 years. The 3- and 4-star establishments and monasteries offers a wide spectrum for guests and this is a motivation for this partnership.

Beginning of the year 2009 Golden Tulip encountered financial problems and was offered on the market for sale. Even though TOP INTERNATIONAL was also bidding for the buy of Golden Tulip, Starwood Capital won the bid. With the new owners of Golden Tulip no synergies coulkd be found and with this the Joint Venture agreement between both parties has been ended in good faith by 2009 years end.

Starting in a new decade the com company´s portfolio is covering 250 hotels in Europe. The FAMILOTEL AG leaves the group of Corpoarte Partners and is replaced by the Austrian hotel group FALKENSTEINER Hotels & Residences, based in Vienna. This partnership is furthermore growing.

In the first half of 2011 the TOP own reservation system TOPREZ by PegasusSolutions will be upgraded to "next-generation" and with this guarantees to offer its members again the newest technology in reservation systems worldwide.
Market leader in the wellness segment is wellnessfinder.com. TOP INTERNATIONAL takes over the ownership of this portal in June 2011 and increases its portfolio, due to the hotels under this umbrella agreement, to the total number of 400. In the year 2012 the portal wellnessfinder.com will furthermore rapidly expanding and an online booking tool will be implemented. Additionally a new start up portal conferencefinder.com will grow the marketshare of this expansion.


At the General Assembly of Embrace Hotels in Essen, Germany in 2012 the official partnership agreement was signed. This new partnership will add another 40 hotels to the portfolio of TOP INTERNATIONAL. The Embrace Hotel association, founded in 2007, unites integrative hotels, which draw its strength from the diversity. The diversity of employees, with or without disabilities, with the possibility to develop and participate according to their skills and capabilities.

In autumn 2013 TOP INTERNATIONAL agreed on a marketing alliance with Guennewig Hotels & Restaurants. This partnership has been continuously expanded and intensified during 2014. After Guennewig Hotels & Restaurants was taken over by Centro Hotels in 2017, the cooperation ended.

The 2015 recorded a breathtaking increase in turnover of 12% and the sum of hotel reservations reached its highest level since founding the company in 1982. A new partnership successfully conculdes the year 2015. The Kirchner Group and TOP INTERNATIONAL signed an LOI for the construction and management of integrative hotel projects in Germany.

The first half-year 2017 has been extremely successful. A new internet booking platform and improved interfaces to the meta search site TRIVAGO provided the TOP Hotels a 25% increase in turnover compared to the same period last year. With the gained experiences in the past two years, TOP INTERNATIONAL decided in the end of 2017 to pursue the initiative of integrative hotel projects on its own.

In 2018, TOP INTERNATIONAL was present for the third time on the ATM - Arabian Travel Market in Dubai with its own stand and the result is more than 12 new members on the Arabian Peninsula in Kuwait, Dubai, Jeddah etc. The turnover expectation is this year, like in the past few years, again with a double-digit percentage increase.

The year 2019 is characterized by new hotel concepts and buzzwords, such as living lobby, community lifestyle hotels, co-working and smart hotel rooms are on everyone's lips. TOP INTERNATIONAL is in vogue and in 2019 takes over the responsibility of the worldwide electronic distribution to various reservation systems of the young and up-and-coming hotel brand the niu hotels of NOVUM Hospitality. With well over 40 hotels by the end of 2020, a new strategic partnership has been secured.

The situation in 2020 was very tense due to the pandemic and TOP INTERNATIONAL, like all other hotel companies, recorded significant revenue decreases of up to 60%. Since the past few years have been well managed, TOP is very well positioned to overcome this period. By means of home office activities and team division in the office on site, the TOP Head Office was able to cover the day-to-day business very well and structure preparations for the time afterwards. TOP expressly thanks the government for the prudent action and the short-time work allowance, which enables us to continue working with the TOP team in the same way.

One of the biggest and challenging tasks in January 2021 will be the switch from the umbrella agreement and technical connectivity to the GDS (Global Distribution System) AMADEUS through our partner PEGASUS to a direct agreement with AMADEUS itself. This was planned and tested months ago and we are able to go live.This enhanced partnership with our most important travel agency booking system will give us much more freedom to individualize our presence and appearance in this system, thus bring us more revenue and bookings. The long lasting partner PEGASUS will still be supporting TOP for all other distribution channels.

The year 2022 is all about expansion. During the difficult times and the Corona-related decline in turnover, many hotels researched new innovative partners who would support them after the restart. As a result, TOP INTERNATIONAL was able to acquire new member hotels in the first quarter of 2022 and conducted promising discussions with potential partner hotels/hotel groups. In the middle of the year, the remainder of the NOVUM Hospitality hotels (total of 150 hotels) will switch to TOP and TOP INTERNATIONAL will market all of the group's brands worldwide as sole provider.

New countries were acquired as TOP member companies in 2020/2023. Once in Central Asia, the ancient architecture world-famous country through which the Silk Road runs, Uzbekistan. In addition, the desert state on the Qatar peninsula in the middle of the Arabian Gulf.

Not only new hotels, but also new distribution channels were opened up for the TOP operation, including Roibos, Travelperk and the AMADEUS Value Hotel Program. 

Finally, after approx. 3 years of development, TOP's own new IBE (Internet Booking Engine) was re-launched and presented to the member companies for free implementation on their own websites.