A getaway with GHT Hotels

Do you have days off during this holiday season? Would you like to make a getaway at a incredible price? We want to remember that there are still hotel rooms available at Hotel Aquarium**** in Lloret de Mar, for the 29th, 30th and 1st, with no minimum nights and unbeatable price of 70€ per double room with half board (90€ full board).

To book, click here.

GHT Hotels wishes all you happy Christmas and a prosper 2011

Hello! these days so special, we want to be near you to wish you the best ... Click here to Discovery our message :-)

Winners of the I GHT Hotels Photo Contest

The summer season is now over and, after a well deserved holiday and feeling sorry for the delay, it's time to make public the 3 winners of the Firs Photo Contest  GHT Hotels. We recall that the 1st prize was a week in half board in one of our hotels, 4 days for the 2nd and for the 3rd prize, two days. Without further ado, here are the winners:

The 3rd most voted photo has been this wonderful instant uploaded by Petr Hrdina, who stayed in the Hotel Maritim, with 10 votes. The picture was taken at the beach of Roca Grossa in Calella.

The 2nd picture with more votes, 13, is a beautiful catch by Isaac Hidalgo in S'Agaro's beach. You can see it here.

And the winner, with 24 votes, is a beautiful photo of Hotel Aquarium at night, made from the pool and uploaded by Mari Paz Ardiaca Hidalgo. Click here to view it.

In the coming days we will contact the winners.
Congratulations to all award winners and enjoy it!

Hotel Balmes: more than 50 years of history

The "Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona" (Commerce Chamber of Barcelona) has awarded this year the award for the 50-year career at Hotels Costa del Maresme - Hotel Balmes, developing the same business for 50 years. Although the Hotel Balmes embryo, Mercedes Visa pension, began its activity the 1957 (53 years ago), the society dates from 1960.

The recognition was given to 112 companies on its 50 years, including the Hotel Balmes (only four hotels), also gave recognition for 75 years to 31 companies (1 hotel) for 100 years at 24 companies (1 hotel), 10 awards for 125 years, seven for 150 years, four for 175 and one for 200 years.

Monthly survey winner

The winner of a weekend with half board in one of our hotels the month of September has been Mr. Felix Engl.

And what has he done? Very simple: answer the online Satisfaction Survey that we send to customers who leave their email address at the hotel register. 

News

We leave you with a number of interesting news related with the areas where we are established:

• ABC News which includes the closing of the centenary of the name "Costa Brava" held at the Casino de Lloret de Mar in the presence of politicians and entrepreneurs. The catering was in charge,among others, El Celler de Can Roca, considered the fifth best restaurant in the world, with three Michelin stars. 

• Finanzas.com announcing the promotion of Lloret de Mar as a professional touristic destination.

• News about the Challenge of Calella (Triathlon) that enhances the International character of the event, counting, in present edition, participants from 36 countries and 5 continents.

• News of El Economista that talks about the profitability of the hotels last two years, confirming the trend of falling prices and so other issues in which we identify.

Oktoberfest Calella

You like beer? And eat well? Then come to experience the Calella authentic German Oktoberfest! 

From 2nd until 23 October, in the football field sea of Calella, you find the marquee of the Oktoberfest, a tradition that started 22 years ago and annually hosts more than 100 bands from 15 different countries. 

Indeed, we have a special offer Oktoberfest at the Maritim Hotel in Calella. The offer consists of a 10% discount plus free parking and also the first child under 12 years does not pay!

To book, click here.

58th Rally Costa Brava: classics

The Costa Brava is known all over for his harmony between sea and mountain, for his wonderful creeks, for his pines hanging of the cliffs... But today we show you her automobilistic face, a tradition that has been held almost 6 decades; we are speaking of the Rally Costa Brava, that this year celebrates his 58ª edition during the days 5 and 6 of November.

Until the past year, the Rally Costa Brava was race puntuable for the Spanish Rally Championship, in which gave appointment so much modern cars and ancient, which propitiate a multitudinous event. Then well, this year, the rally, has conceived like an exclusive appointment for classical cars, the reason to be of the organiser entity (RallyClassics) and worth for the  Historical Championship of Europe. The test will held, besides, all the modalitats reserved to the classics: speed, regularity and regularity sport. 

A year more, the Rally Costa Brava will centre all his logistical activity into Lloret of Mar, with the closed park in the beautiful Maritime Walk and the permanent office, press room and career management to the Hotel Olympic Palace.

It is the only event of this category celebrated in Catalonia and the most ancient rally of Spain. For more information:

http://www.rallycostabrava.com/

http://www.micoche.com/noticiasid.asp?Id=11329

11th September: National Day of Catalonia

September 11th is a big deal in Catalunya and it has absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. 

This day sits deep in the hearts of Catalans and dates back to 1714, when Catalan forces, after 14 months, fell in the Siege of Barcelona during the final stage of the Spanish Succession War. Having to surrender to troops that fought on behalf of the royal Bourbon monarchy, Barcelona, and all of Catalonia lost their institutions and territorial rights that were governed by the now defunct Crown of Aragon. 

This all started when the region chose to support the Archduke Charles of Austria of Habsburg, fame as the rightful owner to throne of Spain. The Spanish Borbones didn’t happen to agree and, by force, took to ruling over Spain with Philip V becoming the first Bourbon king of the country. 

Today, Diada Nacional de Cataluyna also known as Diada de l’Onze de Setembre, in Catalonia is a day of recognition commemorating a valiant day in the history of the region. Citizens take to the streets draping the Catalan flag (called senyeres or estelades) on their backs singing the Catalan anthem, Els Segadors, which was declared the official national anthem of the region by the Catalan Parliament in 1993. It wasn’t till 1980, after Dictator Franco was dead and all the institutions reinstated, that it declared September 11th an official non-secular holiday in Catalonia. This came after 94 years, when the first recognized commemoration took place. 

The day’s activities are a mixture of politics and pride. Traditionally, the heads of various political parties as well as local residents gather at the monument of Rafael Casanova making a symbolic offering of floral bouquets and Catalan flags in honor of his role in the Siege of Barcelona during the War of the Spanish Succession.

More information:

National Day of Catalonia - Wikipedia

July/August Review Contest Winners

Like we do every month, we raffle a 2-days staying in any of our hotels between all the people who has answered the electronic questionaire.
So the lucky winners of the two past months are:



July: Mrs. Tine Koeneke
August: Mrs. Núria Olmos Farreras


Enjoy it!

Calella, sports tourist destination

Calella has invested heavily in recent years to change tourism model of the city, severely degraded in the past years. These efforts are beginning to bear fruit as evidenced by the annual celebration of the Costa de Barcelona-Maresme Challenge (Ironman). 

Well, next September 4th will be held on the II Calella's Beach Tennis Tournament, in Xiringuito 1, in front of the municipal pool. 

For those who want to participate, registration worth € 13 and all you have to do is send a mail to info@atcalella.org. And for 8 € more you get a menu and drink! 

The awards are weekends in hotels of the population, dinners in restaurants, water parks tickets and much more! 

We're expecting you!

Tossa de Mar and the Volkswagen Beetle

If you like old cars and to enjoy the best Costa Brava, you are lucky because next month will be held in Tossa de Mar, the XVII VW Aircooled Classic Concentration, organized by Friends of Volkswagen of Catalonia. 

Specifically, it will be 24, 25 and 26 September in the lovely village of Tossa de Mar, where our chain has 3 fantastic hotels. During the three days that will last the concentration, you will be able to see the vintage vehicles parked on the waterfront of Tossa de Mar, and attend the various tests carried out by participants. 

The concentration of Tossa de Mar is the result of a love history that began in 1993, when the owner of Sa Palma restaurant of this village gave to his wife a Volkswagen Beetle. Along with this gift, he made the promise to meet in Tossa de Mar more beetles than she could never imagine. With this intention appealed to the beetle owners through the press and radio: more than 100 fans responded, who were presented to Tossa with their cars. Encouraged by the success, decided to make it an anual appointment, so the concentration of Tossa was grow, to become, today, in Volkswagen largest concentration of the country.

For those who are interested in attending, we leave the link to our website, where you can see prices and offers for dates of the concentration.

"Gegants" and "Capgrossos" in Calella

Tradition "gegantera" in Catalonia goes back to the fourteenth century. From year 1391, specifically, are the first written documents which mention this centuries-old tradition. These documents refer to the Corpus Christi procession of Barcelona, where the giants of the time were Biblical figures such as David, Goliath and "Sant Cristòfol." Little recently, the tradition was spreading to all Països Catalans (Valencia and Mallorca) and appeared "capgrossos" and the female giants and, since the XIX century, the tradition went further Corpus to the festivals and carnivals, and the Giants went from be biblical figures to be kings, queens and nobles. 

After a long crisis during the second phase of the Franco dictatorship, the tradition rebounded strongly from the 1980s. People restored and reproduced the old giants, new ones were constructed, "colles" and associations and meetings were created all around Catalonia. These contemporaries giants are made of fiberglass and other lighter materials than traditional. In 1984, the Agrupació de Colles de Geganters of Catalonia was created, which from next year annually appoints a "Gegantera" City of Catalonia.

Well, this year's Giant World's Fair will be held in Calella, on September 25th and 26th, in occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Colla de Geganters i Grallers de Calella. Furthermore, the fair will coincide with the 30th Fira de Calella i l'Alt Maresme, held annually during these dates, which receives each year more than 60,000 visitors. 

More information at:

Agrupació de Colles de Geganters de Catalunya

Gegant - Wikipedia

III Open 4x4 Volleyball Calella

Next July, 31st is the III Open 4x4 Beachvolley in Calella, organized by AVPC (Beachvolley Calella Association).

For those who whant to participate or just watch, you'll find the information in their website:

www.voleicalella.com

Hotel Aquarium & SPA, second position of the hotels in Lloret de Mar

As all you know, in GHT Hotels are committed to quality and good service. Well, our effort to improvement has been visible on the Internet, specifically in the tourist opinion page TripAdvisor. 


For those who do not know it, TripAdvisor is a page where everyone can say and rate the hotel where you have stayed in during your vacation. Because of the milions users that Internet has, TripAdvisor has built a reliable score system for all the hotels. 


It turns out that our Hotel Aquarium & Spa in Lloret de Mar has risen from 6th to 2nd position of the hotels in Lloret in 2 months, proving once again that our customers leave home very satisfied with our services.

• Aquarium Hotel in Lloret de Mar has 157 reviews

Monthly raffle of satisfaction questionnaire

In GHT Hotels we are always thinking about how to improve our facilities and services and, therefore, we encourage all our customers to fill our satisfaction questionnaire. 

And there's no better way to do it than raffle each month, among all those who have answered the surveys, two days in one of our hotels for two people in half board basis.

Thus, the winners of the previous two months are: 

May: Jorge Durán Martín 

June: Margaret Coupe 

We hope you enjoy your holidays with us ... again!

GHT Hotels with the enviroment: ISO 14001

After successfully acquired ISO 9001 quality management, in GHT Hotels we wanted to go further. 

We are all aware of the environmental problem threatening our planet, and from GHT Hotels wanted to put our grain of sand, as we understand that it is a global problem and, therefore, we all must work together. For this reason, all our hotels, and GHT Hotels as a company as well, have ISO 14001 environmental management certification. These rules ensure a sustainable environmental management by the company, such as waste selection, recycling, energy saving and, above all, awareness and education of staff. 

The benefits of having this certification are many, both the company and our planet, through the consumer, who has de certainty of quality and environmental compliance by the establishment.

First GHT Hotels' Photo Contest

It is our pleasure to announce the First GHT Hotels' Photo Contest! We want you to show us how were your holidays, with whom you've been, which sites you've visited, and so on. To do so, you must become a fan of our Facebook page and share a photo with us, the most you like. The photo with the most votes "I like", will be winner, that simple! The prize for the most voted picture is a week in Half Board for two people in any of our hotels! But do not worry if you're not the winner, as we look forward in GHT Hotels to deal with, so we decided to give second and third prize too! These consist of 4 and 2 days respectively in one of our hotels in Half Board. 

Contest's bases after the jump.

Sant Joan Night's with GHT Hotels!

The "Revetlla de Sant Joan", popularly known as "Fire Night", the "Witches Night" or Midsummer in English is a celebration that takes place the night of 23 to 24 June all over Catalans Countries. Its origin is pagan and before the introduction of Christianity coincided with the summer solstice on June 21st. The Dinner consists of the traditional "coca" for dessert, of which there are sweet and savory variations.

GHT Hotels likes to celebrate and we do not want to miss this opportunity to share with you this great party. For this reason, all hotels will serve free "coca" with your first drink and, of course, there will be dance music so that you enjoy the shortest night of the year! In addition, in Hotel Balmes, we have a bit of fireworks in the pool area and dance floor.

In Hotel Xaloc there's neither "coca" or dance, but customers can enjoy from the terrace of the hotel, the fireworks in Platja d'Aro. Certainly a show not to be missed!

Promo video from GHT Hotels

We've just upload the promo video that we showed to our collaborators from travel agencies and web sites during the las meeting at Oasis Park Hotel in Lloret de Mar, reported in the previous post.

Meeting with our collaborators

GHT Hotels organized this past Thursday, June 10th, a meeting at the Oasis Park Hotel in Lloret de Mar with representatives of travel agencies and Internet sites which we work with. 

The purpose of the meeting was to show to our collaborators our improvements for this 2010 season at our hotels. Although it became a unique opportunity to reestablish a face-to-face relationship with our major customers, which is usually via telephone or email. And because of the occasion, we shared our will to continue investing and improving, not only in the field of facilities and services but also invest in a touristic model based on the quality and improvement year after year, rather than lower prices, a common practice today. And why have we decided to bet on this model? Very simply, because we believe this is the right path if we don't want to be trapped in a circle cycle of a general lowering of the level that the client expect to find in our hotels and, as logical consequence, also a deterioration in the quality level of the customers. 

The meeting began with a small appetizer followed by a meal. Before playing an audio-visual which showed, fast and fun, all hotels in the group, Mr. Josep Gibert, Commercial Manager of GHT Hotels, spoke to thank to all representatives, and thereafter, gave the word to Mr. Xavier Espot and Mr Josep Janer, the two managers, which exposed the mentality and position of GHT Hotels in these difficult times for the tourism sector, and the entire world at large, and our strong willingness to keep investing and improving our products in order to survive in a sector where, for the majority, will be "invest or die." 

The charming and funny moment was starred by "drac" Jordi, our pet, which appeared together with the Oasis Park Hotel entertainment team, which dedicated to all of us a show with music and dance.

Now, we want to share with you with a selection of the best photo shots.

GHT Hotels gets in Social Media

At GHT Hotels we didn't want to hang behind so this season we get in Social Media and Web 2.0. Now we have Facebook fan's page, from GHT Hotels and from each hotel separately where you can comment, upload your photos and receive special and unique offers. Also we have created a Twitter, to keep you updated with all the latest news and offers, and a Youtube channel, where we will hang promotional videos of our hotels and also, the videos you send  of your holiday with us. 

Mention as well the imminent launch of our new booking engine at GHT Hotels website, and the improvement of the page www.ghthotels.mobi, from which you can now book at our facilities, anywhere you are, through your mobile phone!

Calella - English

Calella, known as the tourist capital of the Costa del Maresme, is characterized by a cosmopolitan and lively city, with a typical Mediterranean climate. The 50 km that separate Calella from Barcelona and Girona, their geographic location, as well as roads, are a key factor for carrying out all sorts of excursions and activities. All these facts become Calella into the perfect tourist destination. 

Calella in figures: 

19,000 people live in Calella. 

8 km2 is the municipality. 

700 years of history has the town of Calella. 

More than 13,000 hotel beds. 

180,000 m2 of golden sandy beach. 

3 km of beach. 

250,000 people decide to spend their holidays every year in Calella. 

Festivals and events: 

Aplec de la Sardana - First weekend of June. "Sardana" is the typical dance in Catalonia, so the "Aplec de la sardana" is a meeting where people from all around Catalonia meet and dance in the Manuel Puigvert promenade, under the shadows of centenary trees.

Renaissance Calella - June. A large craft market is combined with entertainment, animation in the street, music, food tasting and activities for children. 

Folk International Conference - First half of September. Cultural diversity music, dance, crafts, and other examples of traditional folk art invites the people to participate and enjoy the spectacular quality of the companies and groups involved. 

Major Festivals - Calella Celebrates Two Major Festivals, Sant Quirze and Santa Julita (patterns of the city) and the Minerva Festival. The pattern festival, in June 16, is also known as the small party. People go out to the streets for dinner and there are various events by the entities of Calella. The Festa Major de la Minerva, 23 September, is the great party. You can find everything: the opening speech, the meeting of giants, the dance of the "pubilla" (like the Miss), barracks youth, concerts ... 

Fira de l'Alt Maresme - Late September. In the shade of the plane ride centenarians Manuel Puigvert family can enjoy for a few days of the Fira de Calella i l'Alt Maresme. Traditions and handicrafts from all over Catalonia to reach around the world. A a must for lovers of tradition and a unique opportunity to fill the pantry with quality products.

Challenge - October 3, 2010. International triathlon test. Distance: 3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling and 42.2 km attends course on foot (marathon). In mid-May there is the Half Challenge, where triathletes can train by half the distances from the Challenge. 

Oktoberfest Calella - 3 first weeks of October. The average consumption during the three weeks is over 40,000 liters. You can also sample the excellent German cuisine as bratwurst, schnitzel and the kartoffelsalat among others.

Our Hotels in Calella