Английская Википедия:A&O Hotels and Hostels

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Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Infobox company a&o Hotels and Hostels GmbH is a chain of hostels, headquartered in Berlin, that targets young travelers and backpackers, offering cheap group rooms and hotel rooms for two. The hostels are generally centrally located, mostly close to train stations. A&O has 40 subsidiaries in nine countries, making it the biggest privately owned hostel-chain in Europe. In 2019 it recorded about 5 million overnight stays and realised sales of €165 million.

History

Founder Oliver Winter had the idea of opening a hostel after several trips through Europe in the late 1990s. There were few hostels in urban areas in Germany at that time; hostels in Germany were mostly situated in suburban or rural areas and were run by the German Youth Hostel Association; this was a problem for foreign travellers, because only members of the organisation could stay there.

In the year 2000 Winter and his landlord Michael Kluge opened the first a&o Hostel in Berlin Friedrichshain with 164 beds. After a year they doubled the number of beds, and in the years 2002 and 2004, they opened new hostels in Berlin. In 2005 the company opened its first houses outside Berlin, in Prague, Hamburg and Munich. From then on the company established various subsidiaries every year, mostly in Germany, but also in bordering countries.

In 2009 the company made headlines by winning a nearly 5-year-long Lawsuit against the DJH, the German Youth Hostel Association. In 2005 the DJH accused a&o of illegally using the word "Jugendherberge", the German term for youth hostel, which DJH had registered word as a brand in 1998. a&o objected and wanted the brand to be deleted, claiming that the word "Jugendherberge" is too common to be protected. Finally, in 2009 the Federal Patent Court of Germany decided that "Jugendherberge" should be deleted from the brand register.

In 2017 the Investment company TPG Capital purchased the majority of the company shares.

Expansion plans

Since a&o has been acquired by TPG, they massively reinforced their expansion plans. The company published a list of 25 cities in Europe, where new hostels shall be opened in the near future. Besides nine locations in A&O's core markets Germany and Austria, the list also contains cities in Ireland, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.

List of Locations

List of a&o Hotels and Hostels by July 2019.

Name	Country	Opened
Berlin Friedrichshain	Germany	2000
Berlin Zoo	Germany	2002–2012
Berlin Mitte	Germany	2004
Prague Holešovice (Franchise)	Czech Republic	2005–2012
Munich Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2005
Hamburg Hammer Kirche	Germany	2005
Munich Hackerbrücke	Germany	2006
Hamburg Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2007
Dresden Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2007
Leipzig Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2008
Vienna Stadthalle	Austria	2008
Hamburg Reeperbahn	Germany	2009
Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2009
Cologne Neumarkt	Germany	2009
Berlin Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2010
Cologne Dom	Germany	2011
Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2011
Dortmund Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2011
Hamburg City	Germany	2012
Prague Metro Strizkov	Czech Republic	2012-2022
Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2012- 2018
Graz Hauptbahnhof	Austria	2013
Vienna Hauptbahnhof	Austria	2013
Frankfurt Galluswarte (Messe)	Germany	2013
Aachen Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2014
Weimar	Germany	2014
Munich Laim	Germany	2014
Amsterdam Zuidoost (Bijlmer)	Netherlands	2015
Stuttgart City	Germany	2015
Berlin Kolumbus	Germany	2015
Cologne Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2016
Salzburg Hauptbahnhof	Austria	2016
Copenhagen Nørrebro	Denmark	2017
Venice Mestre	Italy	2017
Bremen Hauptbahnhof	Germany	2017
Frankfurt Ostend	Germany	2018
Prague Rhea	Czech Republic	2018
Salzburg Wolfgang's (managed by a&o)	Austria	2019
Venice Mestre II	Italy	2019
Warsaw Wola	Poland	2020
Budapest City	Hungary	2020
Copenhagen Sydhavn	Denmark	2020
Edinburgh City	United Kingdom	2021
Rotterdam City	Netherlands	2022