In brief

Priorywood Holdings, the restaurant group that narrowly failed to acquire the Muswell's chain last year, is to open a Michel's brasserie and bar in central London, the seventh in the chain.

The new outlet on Soho's Wardour Street will be the first to include a large bar area which, together with the brasserie, will seat 120. It is hoped that about 2,000 people a week will be served at the outlet after its opening early next month.

The average spend, as at the other outlets in the chain, will be about £15. There are outlets in Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford, Reading and in Chiswick and Kensington, west London.

The Aga Khan is to develop a 52-bedroom hotel on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania. Named the Zanzibar Serena Inn, it is expected to open in late 1996.

The $6.75m (£4.36m) venture will complement the Aga Khan's $32m (£21m) project for three Serena safari lodges and a luxury tented camp in northern Tanzania, currently under construction. He also operates five Serena lodges and hotels in Kenya.

Hoteliers and restaurateurs can now accept Japanese JCB payment cards as a result of a link between Barclays Merchant Services and the Japanese card company.

The arrangement means retailers now only have to deal with one payment company. About £360m was spent by 568,000 Japanese visitors to the UK last year. One in five Japanese people holds a JCB card.