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).
Vantage Hospitality Group, a top 10 global hotel company with over 1,200 properties, has bolstered its midscale segment Jameson Inn® brand with the addition of a 72-room property in Dublin, GA. Scheduled to officially convert from Hampton Inn in January, the hotel is centrally located between Atlanta and Savannah, and offers guests free Wi-Fi and hot breakfast, an outdoor pool, business center, and meeting space. It will become Vantage's 15th Jameson Inn in the state of Georgia.
It's that time of year where budget planning is in place and critical reviews of current year spending are being analyzed. When it comes to looking at lowering costs while improving productivity, corporate travel policies rank high on the list. However, no longer can corporations afford the luxury of developing one program suited to all travelers and stay rigid throughout the year on compliance. With the introduction of new technology at an accelerated pace, a "one size fits all "approach no longer works
Newport Hospitality Group (NHG) along with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announces the opening of the new Holiday Inn Express and Suites Blacksburg-University. The newly renovated 94 room hotel located at 1020 Plantation Road, previously known as the Comfort Suites University, is conveniently located 1 mile from Virginia Tech. This property will include features in keeping with the $1 billion Holiday Inn relaunch, the largest project of its kind in the history of the hospitality industry. First announced in 2007, the relaunch program creates a more contemporary brand image as part of the drive to increase quality and consistency across the global portfolio.
RLHC (Red Lion Hotels Corporation) (NYSE:RLH) today announced the company has signed a franchise license agreement with Cabot Lodge Ridgeland, Ltd., for the Cabot Lodge Jackson North/Ridgeland in Mississippi. Following the conversion this fall, the hotel will continue to be managed by MMI Hotel Group.
Global hospitality association Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP®) is adding to its hugely successful community giving efforts with HFTP Helps. The first portion of the program, HITEC Helps, first held this year in Austin, Texas to support the United Way for Greater Austin during the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference (HITEC) raised over $15,000 USD in support of the Austin-areas' Memorial Day flood victims. Riding off of the enormous outreach from HFTP members and HITEC participants, HFTP has decided to create HFTP Helps, which will identify and serve a need in a community near the location of theirAnnual Convention & Tradeshow each October.
Aptech Computer Systems announced Coastal Hotels with 4 properties in the western US selected Execuvue® Enterprise Business Intelligence and Targetvue Budgeting and Forecasting. Margaritaville Beach Resort will also install Aptech's Profitvue Enterprise Financial Accounting for its 349-room destination property in Hollywood, FL. Aptech is the leading provider of hospitality software for business intelligence, budgeting, and enterprise financial accounting. Click here for more on Aptech's products and services.
ANZCRO, Australia's largest wholesaler for travel to New Zealand, has selected DHISCO to move its business online and access the best hotel rates. Based on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, the 25-year-old ANZCRO has operated mostly under a traditional wholesale model but is looking to expand its business and access special hotel rates that are run exclusively through the DHISCO channel.
Global professional development association, Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP®), is prepared to launch the first-ever hospitality industry search engine at their 2015 Annual Convention & Tradeshow October 21-24 in Bellevue, Wash. USA. The site, PineappleSearch.com, has aggregated material specific to the hospitality industry, placing importance on informational results such as white papers, articles, journals and more.