In the café lounge, the seating elements come from different decades. Old, yellow bicycles, probably from the Deutsche Post, serve as room dividers. On the tables and shelves are rotary telephones, typewriters and books. Older lampshades with fringe also provide a vintage look. A large hay wagon stands in the dining room, and the breakfast bar is decorated with countless stamps. The numbers of the 42 rooms are on different mailboxes next to each door. In the rooms, the door frames are pasted with comics, and black-and-white photos of telephone operators hang above the beds.

"A wide variety of departments helped with the design," says sales manager Luisa Lautner, who gives GA a tour of the hotel. The 33-year-old is taken with the former Park Hotel and its location by the Kurpark (Spa Park): "The building has a lot of history, so we wanted to preserve it." She says the building now has a new style, but the elevator in the stairwell, framed with glass walls, and the columns in the dining room, decorated with colorful mosaics, are reminiscent of old times. "For the design, we took our cue from upcycling," Lautner explains. Upcycling involves refurbishing old objects.

In keeping with the guiding theme of "telecommunications," a yellow telephone booth greets guests in the reception area. Visitors can trace the history of communication on a timeline with various pictures and objects. "Our theme is Story of Words, which means communication in general," says Lautner.

A year ago, the Halbersbacher Hospitality Group asked Bonn residents to donate items. Several pieces of furniture, lamps, books and suitcases were subsequently delivered to the hotel. The employees covered the wall behind the reception desk with old telephone book pages, for example. "Many people from Bonn visit the hotel and look for their mailboxes and items that they have donated," says employee Noemi Habling. The 37-year-old helped with the interior design. "I love the hotel, it’s décor and all the details," she says. Many guests feel the same way.

So far, the receptionist has received only positive feedback, she reports: "A lot of photos are being taken of the interior design." One popular motif is said to be the more than two-meter-tall teddy bear in the café lounge. The giant stuffed animal is the hotel's mascot and can also be cuddled. His little siblings are distributed among the rooms. "The tweddys have been sustainably produced in Germany," says Lautner.

The hotel rooms are also designed with sustainability in mind. Closets are wine boxes hanging on the wall, and cable drums have been turned into nightstands. The bathrooms were completely renovated, Lautner explains. All the rooms have the same layout, she says, with only the sizes varying.

The tinyTwice Hotel opened on September 15 after a considerable delay. Lautner attributed the delay to supply bottlenecks and a shortage of skilled workers, as well as some obstacles that had arisen during the building restoration. There were also difficulties in filling the post of hotel director. Former director Vera Yavuz, who had shown the GA the progress being made at the hotel as recently as spring, is said to have sought a new job. The position has already been filled, Lautner says: "We have a director again who will start Feb. 1." Currently, there are four employees at the hotel, who are "all-rounders" and can take on various tasks. "We're looking for two more employees to add to that," Lautner says.

Bookings have been slow so far, with 15 guests currently checked into the hotel, she said. "We are just trying to establish ourselves in the market. At first we had good months, but now it's quieter again. That's also because the main business has shifted to the summer months," says the sales manager. In September, the hotel was fully booked.

Rheinhotel Dreesen was pleased with its full bookings. After the broadcast of the two-part series on German TV network ARD "The White House on the Rhine" many people wanted to see the hotel. Around 80 reservations resulted from the film - a number the hotel normally records in one week, but not in one day, explained hotel director Christof Keller to the GA.

The Nyce Hotel in the former Indonesian Embassy in Friesdorf opened in the spring. What has the occupancy rate been so far in the 58-room hotel of the Hamburg hotel chain Centro, which owns the Nyce brand? Hotel manager Gregor Kukwa is satisfied: "We are now being noticed by companies in the area, which are increasingly booking their guests with us." Visitors who book on their own, coming to festivals in the Rheinaue, book the hotel mainly in the summer months.

According to Kukwa, trade shows in Cologne brought "quite a bit of business" in the fall. "The situation on the Bonn hotel market has eased slightly in recent months - as it has everywhere," said the hotel manager. A major problem continues to be finding enough workers, he said.

Original text: Niklas Schröder

Translation: ck