Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT) ("Hilton"), HNA Group ("HNA") and Blackstone (NYSE: BX) announced today that HNA will acquire an approximate 25 percent equity interest in Hilton from affiliates of Blackstone, establishing a long-term strategic investment in Hilton and Hilton's planned spin-offs of Park Hotels & Resorts ("Park") and Hilton Grand Vacations ("HGV").
According to the study of Allen et al., (1998), USA rural resident's overall subjective well-being is influenced by seven factors: public services, economics, environment, medical services, citizen involvement, formal education, and recreation services. Among them, residents' satisfaction with environmental concern, citizen involvement and public services are the most sensitive to tourism. This finding is consistent with a more recent study which expanded the sample to residents in both urban and rural areas (Andereck & Nyaupane, 2010). Andereck and Nyaupane (2010) identified that tourism related subjective well-being of local residents consists of eight domains: recreation, community pride, economic strength, natural/cultural preservation, community well-being, way of life, crime and substance, and urban issue.
RobertDouglas announced its presence in the market loudly with its #7 national ranking in Real Estate Alert's "Top Brokers of Hotels in the First Half." The firm closed five transactions totaling $320 million and only nar rowly missed beating out real estate giants HFF and C&W in the rankings. For more details, please visit the following link:
John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts (JQH) today announced that the family of companies, the Revocable Trust of John Q. Hammons, and their related affiliates have filed voluntary petitions to restructure under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of Kansas at Kansas City. JQH held a press conference this morning in Springfield to announce the filing. JQH is a leading private, independent owner and manager of hotels in the United States, including operating more than 1 million square feet of superb meeting space.
To identify and discuss the primary issues faced by hospitality finance professionals today, the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals' (HFTP®) Hospitality Finance Advisory Council (HFAC) held its inaugural hospitality operations finance roundtable on Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at the Hilton McLean Tyson Corner in McLean, Va. USA. The goal for the meeting is to gather hospitality finance executives to identify the key issues they are currently facing and discuss how they are being addressed. Based on the discussion, HFTP will develop educational programming and resources to support its hospitality finance members and industry at large.
RobertDouglas announced today that it advised Castleton Hotel Partners I, LLC in the sale of the ultra-luxury Capella Washington, D.C. to an affiliate of CTF Development International for $65 million. Following the acquisition, CTF Development International plans to rebrand the hotel under Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, its first ever in the nation's capital.
The use of credit cards has increased dramatically over the past few years. Not only are transient guests using credit cards to pay for their guest rooms and incidentals, but group and event planners are now paying their master bills for conventions and banquets with a credit card. Ease of payment, affinity program points, and the dwindling use of checks are frequently cited as reasons for this trend.
New York, NY – January 6, 2016 – RobertDouglas announced today that it advised 52 West 13th P, LLC, a subsidiary of Gemini Real Estate Advisors, in the sale of The Jade Hotel Greenwich Village. The sale was the result of a Chapter 11 proceeding administered by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The 113-key boutique hotel, located on West 13th Street in the heart of Greenwich Village, was developed by Gemini and was purchased for $78,000,000 by a venture comprised of Bridgeton Holdings and an offshore family office.
2015 ended as expected: a record year for the hospitality industry, 2016 is looking to continue that trend with expected ADR growth at 6 percent and though occupancy looks to remain relatively flat, this translates to a 6 percent growth in RevPAR and perhaps the most profitable year ever in our industry.
New York, (Dec. 22, 2015) – RobertDouglas announced today that it advised Richardson Redo LLC ("Redo") in the sale of the Residence Inn Hartford Downtown, a, mixed-use property located in the historic Richardson Building, a former Brown Thompson department store designed by H. H. Richardson, the pre-eminent 19th Century architect. The property includes the 120-suite Residence Inn by Marriott, nearly 70,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, and 139 spaces of garage and surface parking. Located in the heart of downtown Hartford, the Residence Inn has consistently been a market leader.
The 11th Revised Edition of the USALI contains some significant changes that are very obvious to readers. Examples include the addition of a new Undistributed Department (Information and Telecommunications Systems), or the movement of Non-Operating Income out of Total Revenue.
Experts and government officials will join business leaders on Dec. 19 to discuss exciting international opportunities in the hospitality and tourism industry at the first USA-China Tourism Research Summit in Orlando. Elsevier, a world-leading publisher of scientific journals, and the University of Central Florida's Rosen College of Hospitality Management, the largest hospitality college in the United States, will jointly host the summit at the college's 159,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art campus.
Labor and related costs are the largest single expense items for hotel operations. The combined salaries, wages and benefits paid to employees averages close to 50 percent of total operating expenses. Further, the personal level of service offered by employees is an integral component of the hotel product and guest experience. Accordingly, hotel management spends a significant amount of time controlling labor costs, managing employee productivity, and training personnel.
In continuance of its fundamental mission to support hospitality-focused education, Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) has announced the creation of the Agnes DeFranco, Ed.D., CHAE Scholarship. The scholarship, named in honor of DeFranco an HFTP Global Past President, resides at the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston. To seed the scholarship, HFTP is donating US$25,000, which will be matched 100 percent by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
American Realty Capital Hospitality Trust, Inc. ("ARC Hospitality" or the "Company") announced today that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of 10 hotels for a purchase price of $150.1 million from Summit Hotel Properties (NYSE: INN) ("Summit"), a publicly-traded hotel real estate investment trust. This transaction represents the first 10 of 26 hotels that the Company announced it will be acquiring from Summit for a total purchase price of $347.4 million. In addition, ARC Hospitality currently has another 18 hotels under contract with unrelated Sellers for $392.4 million. ARC Hospitality intends to close on all of the acquisitions during the next eight months consistent with previous announcements, for an aggregate of 44 hotels.
RobertDouglas announced today that it advised Chartres Lodging Group and Artemis Real Estate Partners on the $20.5 million financing for the acquisition of the Courtyard Long Beach Airport in Long Beach, CA. The Courtyard Long Beach Airport is a recently-built premium focused-service hotel that features 159 spacious guestrooms; Courtyard by Marriott's signature food and beverage outlet, The Bistro; approximately 2,000 square feet of meeting space; a heated outdoor swimming pool and whirlpool spa; and a well-equipped fitness center. The Property is ideally situated within the 261-acre Douglas Park mixed-use development that features a rapidly expanding tenant base including Mercedes-Benz, Virgin Galactic, The Kong Company, Food Pharma, and Turbo Air.
Ithaca, NY -- The Pillsbury Institute's seventh annual Cornell Hospitality Business Plan Competition has raised the prize for the first place winner to $25,000 and the overall purse to $37,500, making it the largest competition prize package for Cornell students exclusively. Second and third place winners will receive $7,500 and $5,000, respectively. Dr. Susan Fleming, faculty sponsor for the competition, commented "Increasing the prize money aligns us more with competitions on college campuses across the US and will help us to increasingly attract student teams with some of the most promising business ideas and plans on campus. Since the inception of the competition, we have seen the quality of the entries continually improve and more of the businesses actually being launched. We want to support this success and foster further success."The Cornell Hospitality Business Plan Competition is an annual event at the School of Hotel Administration that begins in November when student teams are formed and executive summaries for business plans are developed. The competition ends in March during Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC) when finalists present their business plans to an audience of alumni and other industry executives, and winners are selected. The Business Plan Competition is a meaningful learning experience for students who are interested in pursuing an entrepreneurial venture and whose ideas serve as new independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages.Students interested in entering the competition can attend the Pizza Social at the Pillsbury Institute in 289 Statler Hall on October 14 at 4:30 p.m. to learn more about the competition and network with other students interested in participating. The institute has streamlined the registration and submission process, and judging of the competition with the addition of PitchBurner. The competition is open to all full-time undergraduate and graduate students.
As a member of the 50-100 Coalition, which supports small businesses and works to protect affordable coverage for employees, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) applauds the White House for repairing a flaw in the Affordable Care Act that will prevent premium increases for small businesses. On Wednesday, President Obama signed the bipartisan "Protecting Affordable Coverage for Employees (PACE) Act" into law, which allows states to keep the current definition of a small group market as 50 or fewer employees or expand the definition of the small group market to include groups up to 100 employees. TheCongressional Budget Office (CBO) had also recently scored the PACE Act as saving $400 million over 10 years.
RobertDouglas announced today that it advised Meyer Jabara Hotels in the $35 million financing of the Providence Marriott Downtown. The five-year, floating rate financing was provided by ACORE Capital.
The 11th revised edition of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI) was published in the spring of 2014, with an implementation date of January 1, 2015. The responsibility for revising the USALI lies with the Financial Management Committee (FMC) of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA).