Maritim has been playing a decisive role in the development of Germany's hotel industry since its founding in 1969 and the country's best known hotel chain now enjoys an international reputation. The comprehensive portfolio includes centrally located city hotels, conveniently located airport hotels, coastal beach resorts, lakeside family hotels, course-adjoining golf hotels and parkland spa hotels. While every property is uniquely individual with its own advantages, they are united under Maritim's motto of ‘meetings and accommodation under one roof'. When it comes to event facilities, no other private company in Germany can match Maritim's collection of congress halls and meeting rooms. Both national and international clients appreciate Maritim's excellent event infrastructure combined with its wealth of experience planning, organising and managing gatherings of all scales. The elegant accommodation, state of the art event rooms, award winning restaurants, sought-after pubs and comprehensively equipped wellness facilities have made the name "Maritim" synonymous with German hospitality excellence.
One of the ingredients for Maritim's recipe for success is its emphasis on wining and dining. Most hotels have multiple restaurants serving both regional specialties and a wide selection of international favourites. Depending on which hotel they stay in, guests can enjoy Japanese sushi, Arabian maza, Turkish Gözleme or the culinary excellence of an award-winning Michelin star restaurant. Regardless of which hotel, the day always gets off to a perfect start with Maritim's signature breakfast buffet.
As a family owned and run company, Maritim understands the decisive role each and every employee has to play in its ongoing success. The company invests in itself by investing in its staff - with apprenticeships, advanced vocational training and the workplace incentives that keep top people with the company longer. It's an investment that pays dividends: in addition to regular podium placements in industry competitions, Maritim apprentices often receive excellent scores on their exams to finish top of their classes. Additional training through the Maritim Academy combined with internal promotional opportunities pave the way to the long term job satisfaction that ultimately translates into guest satisfaction.
When people think of Maritim, they usually think about the business; the hotels they like to stay in or the room they have just booked. Not many people know that other companies also form part of the Maritim Group. Some of these work behind the scenes, while others are customer-facing, but they all contribute to the well-being of the guest.
The company's portfolio has also experienced rapid international expansion in the last decade, providing guests with famous Maritim hospitality abroad. This is backed by Maritim Hotel-Reisedienst (Maritim Hotel Travel Service) - a full service IATA licensed travel agency. Aside from creating and coordinating tailor-made accommodation packages, Maritim Hotel Travel Service also provide holidaymakers and businesspeople with competitive flight prices, airport transfers and hire cars. They are experts in realising special wishes such as luxury honeymoons, romantic wellness getaways, days of deep sea diving and 18 holes-a-day holidays. The agency assists conference organisers with unforgettable incentives and groups with multilingual tour guides and local excursions.
Upon realising its goal of creating a nationwide network of hotels, Maritim established HMS - Hotel Management Services International GmbH, a company that focuses on acquiring management contracts for hotels overseas. The initiative yielded quick and impressive results - and the list of destinations abroad now flying the Maritim flags includes Egypt, Bulgaria, China and Albania. Liaising with the company's offices in Germany, HMS ensures the transformation of new hotels goes far beyond branding measures. Staff undergo intensive vocational schooling and advanced training, operational procedures are evaluated and modified where necessary, menus are scrutinised and marketing avenues explored. No hotel will accept a guest under the name Maritim before the company is absolutely certain the accommodation experience will meet the company's high standards. Furthermore, HMS acts as Maritim's headquarters for the international portfolio with responsibility for their day to day operations.
In addition to acquiring existing hotels, Maritim's portfolio expansion also consists of creating new hotels. Wherever possible, the planning and construction is handled by the company's architectural and engineering firm, Reinhardt & Sander. From the drawing board to reality, the creative drive of Reinhardt & Sander has been one of Maritim's foundation stones from the beginning. Also responsible for ongoing renovations and expansion, the firm consists of expert departments that together cover the entire spectrum of requirement possibilities. One of the main advantages for Maritim of being able to draw on this valuable resource ‘in-house' is speed and cost. Lengthy and costly bidding processes and price negotiations are eliminated while approval processes are streamlined. Construction of the 410 room luxury congress hotel in Bonn for example, earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records. A mere 9 months were required from the groundbreaking ceremony to the official opening.
Reinhardt & Sander's expertise extends to the overseas portfolio in the form of consultancy. While certain design elements are often in keeping with local and historical architecture, the fine aesthetics that put guests in a relaxed, holiday mood are universal. Natural lighting, landscaping, furnishing, colours, placement, proportion, acoustics - all have to be just right so that no matter where in the world Maritim guests are staying, they immediately enjoy a sense of wellbeing.
In this fast paced age, while globalisation opens the door to whole new worlds of possibility, it is still the intelligent, thought-through strategies combined with vision that stand the test of time. Maritim's ongoing success throughout the last four decades is proof that ‘accommodation and meetings under one roof' is a winning concept. This does by no means however, mean the company will ever rest on its laurels. Maritim knows that continual maintenance and visionary development of its valued services play a decisive role in securing the future.
In line with Maritim's strategic analysis of developing markets, the company is pushing full steam ahead with its international expansion plans. Properties in major European capitals and sought-after holiday destinations around the world are currently being analysed for potential and considered for the portfolio. Maritim continues to plan with innovation, creativity and inexhaustible drive - leading the way from drawing board to reality.