Friday 14 November 2008 | A New St Regis To Rise In Mauritius | Starwood Hotels & Resorts has signed a long-term management contract with Mauritian company Abkid Ltd for its second property on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The 174-room St Regis Resort & Spa Mauritius is to open in 2010 on the island’s southern tip, and it will join its sister property the 198-room Le Méridien Ile Maurice, on the island’s northwest coast.

Friday 14 November 2008 | The active U.S. hotel development pipeline includes 5,917 hotels with 647,136 guestrooms, according to the October 2008 STR/TWR/Dodge Construction Pipeline Report released this week. This represents an 11.2-percent increase in the number of guestrooms in the active pipeline over October 2007. However, the number of guestrooms in the construction phase of the pipeline in October decreased 4.9 percent from October 2007 to 190,395 (1,541 properties). Figures in the report include hotels in the In Construction, Final Planning and Planning stages. They do not include the Pre-Planning stage.

Friday 14 November 2008 | Results from STR Global show a sharp drop in revenue per available room (RevPAR) for London and Regional UK from October through the beginning of November. The exception was Liverpool, which benefited from its European Capital of Culture 2008 status. The UK hotel market has been following the global trend of declining occupancies and growing rates for the first nine months of this year. Year-to-September still showed 3-percent RevPAR growth across the UK driven by 4-percent growth in room rates compared with the same time prior year.

Friday 14 November 2008 | According to the IMF, the current financial downturn affecting the globe is set to continue through 2009, with world economic growth to slow to 3.9% in 2008 and 3.0% in 2009. The economic and financial crisis has dramatically altered the shape of the global landscape for travel and tourism, as liquidity dries up, commodity prices rise, inflation increases and consumer demand falls. Uncertainty hangs over the industry, especially as the full scale of the downturn and government intervention in major banking markets is yet unknown. Recession is expected in the world’s advanced markets and even emerging economies are not immune to the slowdown. However, governments have shown their commitment to restoring economic confidence and the IMF predicts a recovery in 2010. So what should the industry brace itself for in the short term?

Friday 14 November 2008 | During this week's International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show® 2009 (IHMRS) in New York City, Hotel News Now (hotelnewsnow.com) caught up with a few hospitality leaders to discuss opportunities and challenges facing the hospitality industry. Now that the election is over, what does 2009 hold for the hospitality industry?

Friday 14 November 2008 | Is there any capital in the current marketplace? What will it take to get financing? When will markets return to normal? These and other questions were laid out on the table for examination by two elite panels of hospitality and real estate finance industry experts who met this week in conjunction with the International Hotel / Motel & Restaurant Show in New York City. Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration organized the high-level discussions, a Center for Hospitality Research Real Estate / Finance Roundtable held Nov. 10 at the offices of law firm Proskauer Rose LLP, and “Real Estate Capital: Where is the Money Coming From?”, the third installment in the Dean’s Leadership Series, which took place Nov. 11 at the New York Yacht Club.

Thursday 13 November 2008 | The U.S. hotel industry suffered dramatic year-over-year drop-offs in each of the three key performance measurements during the week of 02-08 November, according to data from STR. In year-over-year measurements, the industry’s average daily rate for the week tumbled 3.5 percent to finish the week at US$105.80 (US$109.66 during the same week in 2007). Meanwhile, occupancy for the week dropped 14.2 percent to finish the week at 56.9 percent (66.4 percent in 2007), and revenue per available room plummeted 17.2 percent to finish the week at US$60.25 (US$72.76 in 2007).

Thursday 13 November 2008 | Presented at the fifth annual Hospitality Leadership Forum, held in conjunction with the 2008 International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show® in New York on November 8, 2008. The forum brought together visionaries from the hospitality industry and beyond, giving attendees the opportunity to hear firsthand about the forces that will shape the future of the industry.

Thursday 13 November 2008 | Presented at the fifth annual Hospitality Leadership Forum, held in conjunction with the 2008 International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show® in New York on November 8, 2008. The forum brought together visionaries from the hospitality industry and beyond, giving attendees the opportunity to hear firsthand about the forces that will shape the future of the industry.

Wednesday 12 November 2008 | As I prepare for the annual meeting of the owners and operators of Leading Hotels of this weekend, I am struck by the rapidly changing performance of luxury hotels in the U.S. During the last upturn, between 2004 and 2006, we reported that hotels in this chain scale achieved double-digit RevPAR growth in all three years. During these heady days the notion of luxury hotels as “recession proof” came into being. Now that a real recession is shaking the U.S. economy and consumer confidence, we observed that RevPAR year-to-date through September dropped 0.8 percent. This drop is a function of the decrease in occupancy (-2.9 percent) and the increase in ADR of around +2.1 percent. While demand continued to increase (+1.4 percent year-to-date), the past performance of this chain scale has attracted a slew of new luxury hotels over the last couple of years. Through September, the number of luxury hotel rooms increased 4.4 percent. And several luxury projects are still under development are slated to open in 2009.