You can tell something with turtles. Your slowness stands for peaceful deceleration, for a pace of life step by step. Depending on the imagination, the reptile is also accorded various properties: stupidity, vanity, lust, prudence, perseverance, cleverness and stubbornness or even inexorability. But what drove hoteliers to enter the highly competitive Hamburg hotel market under the name Schildkröte? And that in the town courtyards between New Wall and Große Bleichen?
People rummaged through old Hamburg annals for a long time in order to unearth the appropriate story and acquired the French equivalent “tortue” for the turtle. Allegedly, in Napoleon’s time, French dandies strolled with turtles on a leash on Hamburg’s splendid promenades – as a sign of the sheer luxury of having a long day to yourself and illustrious idleness. “That worked out,” says Marc Ciunis, who runs the Tortue business together with Carsten von der Heide. “With our hotel we wanted to create French flair and a completely new world of enjoyment for Hamburg.”
Dine intimate: Especially after the lockdowns, many want to go out again.
(Photo: Tortue Hamburg)
So savoir-vivre in the middle of the Hanseatic city. That is why the boutique hotel, which opened in summer 2018, primarily serves a different purpose than the usual hostels in the city. “We are not a hotel with a restaurant, but rather the other way round: With our restaurants we offer sophisticated international cuisine, complemented by a hotel that has 128 individually furnished rooms,” says Ciunis, 57, who, like his partner Heide, primarily lives in the Gastronomy has grown up professionally.
The hotel benefits from the surrounding dining experience
The hotel complex includes an Asian restaurant, a brasserie, various bars and, since the beginning of September, the “Chez l’ami Tortue”, an intimate restaurant that awakens the desire for opulent meat dishes behind heavy curtains in a subdued and discreet atmosphere with gently flickering candles want. “And that is very well received after just a few days,” emphasizes Ciunis.
However, the turtle’s pace has also become a symbol for the development of the project itself. It took more than ten years from the first idea to the completion of the entire catering and hotel project. Care came before speed. Ultimately, the investors had decided to integrate the hotel and restaurants into the historically grown Stadthöfe area. And well-known architects and designers had been hired for this.
“We are not a hotel with a restaurant, but rather the other way around,” says Marc Ciunis, who runs the Tortue stores together with Carsten von der Heide.
(Photo: Tortue Hamburg)
The hotel is now located over five floors in a stylish building that was completed at the end of the 19th century. The top two floors were placed on top of the old structure. The concept for this comes from the famous architect David Chipperfield and the Kuehn Malvezzi Architects. The interior of the rooms as well as the restaurants, bars and hotel lobby were designed by Hong Kong-based designer and architect Joyce Wang and British designer Kate Hume, who has also designed the largest apartment in the Elbphilharmonie.
So much effort, care, time, exclusivity and celebrity costs. The talk is of 22 million euros – double the originally planned budget. And nevertheless, assures the managing director Ciunis, the medical supply of Lower Saxony, which together with the medical supply works of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt owns the entire town courtyards complex, is very satisfied with the Tortue complex: “We have been one of them since it opened in the summer of 2018 the new gastro hotspots in the city. “
The hotel itself also benefited from the surrounding dining experience. Ciunis assures us that 2019, the first full business year, was a sensational one. “We had an occupancy rate of more than 80 percent over the year.” Then there was a setback in 2020 – the corona pandemic also had consequences for public life in Hamburg and, above all, for the catering and hotel industry. The tourism industry in Hamburg with its around 10,000 businesses, including more than 520 hotels, inns and pensions as well as more than 5200 dining establishments, apparently only knew one direction in the pre-Corona years – upwards.
The building, which had already been completed at the end of the 19th century, was extended by the top two floors. The concept comes from the star architect David Chipperfield and the office Kuehn Malvezzi Architects.
(Photo: Tortue Hamburg)
According to Wolfgang Raike, CEO of the Hamburg Tourism Association, the slump in tourism has hit the industry hard in the entire city with around 100,000 employees. The number of overnight stays over 2020 fell by more than 55 percent to less than seven million, and the number of guests by almost 60 percent to a good three million.
“Last year we also had to accept a loss of ten million euros in sales compared to 2019,” the Tortue managing director calculates soberly. “Quite a disaster.” Not only for the hotel, but above all for the more than 140 employees in the best of times, most of whom had to be put on short-time work twice due to the double lockdown in spring and autumn and winter.
Ciunis and Heide, however, uphold the team spirit that has grown rapidly since the opening. “In the spirit of a family, we have put together a whole bundle of wellness and further training measures for our employees,” says Ciunis and talks about meetings and workshops via Zoom-Call, about baking, cooking and yoga courses on the Internet, about gift and Cocktail boxes and St. Martin’s goose that every employee could take home in the run-up to Christmas.
“We went into the Corona period together and came out again together,” says Ciunis, whose business confidence has grown significantly in recent weeks. “While our hotel was only 40 percent full after reopening in May, we reached 70 percent in August,” says the Tortue boss. “That brought us the first black zero this year.” This means that Ciunis, Heide and Co are in line with the industry trend.
She sets the pace. The turtle is symbolic of the Hamburg hotel.
(Photo: Tortue Hamburg)
Hotels and restaurants in particular are recovering in Hamburg, albeit still mostly in the turtle trot. Ciunis is satisfied with the increasing number of guests in its bars and pubs. After the corona lockdowns, the guests are extremely grateful that they can now go out and eat again. And after a long period of renunciation, they wanted to “really reward themselves” again. An important economic aspect for the restaurateur, after all, they tended to higher quality and higher prices. Ciunis is convinced that his company will still need months to get back to the level of the pre-pandemic period. “The recovery course will definitely need the whole of next year,” he says and shrugs his shoulders: “Tortue sets the pace here too.”