Fort Lauderdale, a staple South Florida beach destination, is shifting its focus beyond leisure tourism with a $1.3-billion investment in the Broward County Convention Center and adjoining Omni Hotel. Following this project, Fort Lauderdale will position itself as both a vacation destination and a commercial city.
First, the nomenclature of the forbidden practices, then the names for the law, a summary of the latest events, and details of the final California Junk Fee Law. In this article, we will focus on the changes to the California Civil Code (CC), and particularly CC Section 1770) of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CC 1750, et eq.).
The Cincinnati lodging market is gearing up for an influx in demand fueled by the renovation of the Duke Energy Convention Center. Moreover, recent success and changes in the city’s diverse sports scene are drawing visitors from near and far.
In the morning hours of June 25, 2024, the California Assembly unanimously approved Senate Bill 1534, an emergency response to the special interests of restaurants and labor (the California Restaurant Association and UNITE HERE), exempting any “restaurant, bar, food concession, grocery store or grocery delivery service” from application of the SB 478’s Honest Pricing Law that was passed in last year to become effective on July 1, 2024.
Just as the hospitality industry evolves, so too must the format of its conventions, especially one as influential to the hospitality industry as HITEC. This year, the senior team at HFTP has expanded the tradeshow’s depth and impact with the inaugural HITEC Technology Investment Conference, taking place immediately after the main event on Thursday, June 27 and Friday, June 29. While it’s been in the making for a long time, we couldn’t have hoped for a better year to debut this addition.
Before the application of AI and ML in hospitality facilities, operations could only be controlled manually, utilizing control mechanisms and pre-set schedules, which only promoted wastage. Waste management has become less efficient due to challenges in segregating waste and monitoring the waste stream, hence more landfills and less recycling. In addition, concepts related to sustainability and providing attentive and personalized guest care were less efficient. The hospitality industry is adopting a technological innovation that will transform sustainability for hotels and resorts.
Organizational structures and job titles grow and evolve the same as every other facet of running a business and adapting to the times. Two decades ago, we may have written about the dawn of online room sales and how hotels would be wise to carve out a ‘social media manager’ role which was quite novel at the time. Today it’s all but anathema to not have a team member solely devoted to this area or specific responsibilities assigned to the marketing director, depending on the size of the company.
On June 11, 2024, the United States House of Representatives passed HR 6543, the so-called “No Hidden FEES Act of 2023” which introduces federal regulations aimed at enhancing transparency and fairness in the advertising of hotel room and short-term lodging prices. A critical component of this Act is its preemption clause, found in Section 4(a), which establishes a national standard prohibiting states from enforcing any laws that conflict with the federal mandate. This provision has significant implications for state regulations, such as California’s SB 478, which also aims to protect consumers from hidden fees in various transactions. The scope and application of this preemption clause are essential for assessing how state laws will be affected and ensuring compliance with the new federal standards.
FIAF Florence Gould Hall Theater was bustling in early June with another successful Boutique Hotel Investment Conference. Kudos to the BLLA team for executing a great event! This article presents some key takeaways from HVS attendees Patricia Shih (HVS Consulting & Valuation) and Marcus Lee (HVS Asset Management & Advisory).
As a border town, Buffalo has historically been heavily reliant on Canadian visitors and U.S. travelers stopping over en route to/from Canada for lodging demand. Based on a recent hotel market study and many hotel appraisals in the greater Buffalo-Niagara area I have performed, it is clear that traffic volume at the land crossings has an impact on these border markets. Below is a brief timeline of the changing restrictions for border crossings from 2020 until 2023.
Mark S. Adams is the go-to senior lawyer in JMBM’s hospitality litigation team for assessing legal exposure, pursuing legitimate claims, and defending a client’s rights involving hospitality matters.
They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and for IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG), it just keeps getting bigger. Texas already is a booming state for transplants and travelers alike, with its growing population and diverse range of attractions drawing in hundreds of millions of visitors each year. This surge in tourism has led to an increased demand for guest accommodations, with more than 11,000 hotel rooms set to be built in the state this year alone. Economic impact from these new hotels will trickle down into the surrounding community, with guests venturing out to frequent restaurants, bars, shopping locations and attractions.
For more than 20 years consumers have complained about hidden mandatory fees, junk fees, resort fees, destination fees, service fees, administration fees, health fees, surcharges, connection fees, and similar charges, whatever they are called.
Prior research conducted by CBRE Hotels Research revealed that hotel management companies were rewarded handsomely as the U.S. lodging industry recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis performed by CBRE in April 2023 found that total hotel revenue increased by 153% from 2020 to 2022, while Gross Operating Profits (GOP) grew by 437%. This resulted in a 68% increase in the fees paid to management companies and brought management fees back to pre-pandemic levels. The increases in fees were largely due to the improved performance of U.S. lodging properties, which in turn triggered the payment of incentive management fees.
Mixed messages abound these days, comprising some bright spots, some not so bright spots, and some challenges. With no coherent theme, the greatest challenge may be developing a forecast for the industry as a whole. But we are undaunted and herewith present our current expectations for the U.S. lodging industry.
As we prepare for the upcoming Commercial Strategy Conference (CSC), I’m excited to share insights from the newly released HSMAI Foundation report, From Solos to Symphony. The Transformational Power of ‘Commercial’. Authored by Breffni M. Noone and Chris Boyd, this report offers the first comprehensive research of how the formalization of the commercial function can revolutionize hotel performance.
Over the past couple of months, it has become increasingly clear that interest rates for hotel financing, and just about everything else, may stay higher for longer. As markets adjust to this expectation, many investors are realizing that they may not be able to delay deals until rates drop back down to so-called “normal” levels. There is mounting pressure for financing decisions that will need to be made in the coming months. In this article, we have compiled and analyzed historical hotel interest rate data, as well as indications from the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC or “Fed”) on the anticipated direction of future interest rates, to help provide some context for the past, present, and future of the hotel financing market.
For Canadians, Fairmont is not just a hotel brand but a fixture of our nation’s history. In the decades following the country’s confederation in 1867, towns that connected the Eastern hubs of Montreal, Toronto, Quebec and Ottawa with the still-budding Western ports of Vancouver and Victoria were few and far between. It fell up Canadian Pacific – the company that would eventually sell its hotel division to Fairmont Raffles Hotels International then to Accor in 2016 – to not only build a transcontinental railway but to erect a series of what we now deem iconic hotels along the route.
The concept of a contemporary, boutique motel, either as a new build or retrofit, that commands sizably higher-than-market rates started to become a trend in the 2010s but has grown since the pandemic. Spurred on by a core psychographic of drive-to-vacation culture amongst Gen X and millennials, in the United States we are seeing multi-property brands like Bluebird and Urban Cowboy achieve success by opening exquisitely decorated lodges in sought-after rural areas near major cities. Then there are a host of independents gracing the covers of travel magazines such as The Vagabond Hotel in Miami, The Dive Motel in Nashville, Skyview Los Alamos in California and Thunderbird in Marfa, Texas.
The hotel transaction market continues to face significant headwinds. Investors are still concerned about the prohibitive cost of debt, and with the chances of a summer rate cut from the Fed becoming slimmer, expensive debt may remain for the foreseeable future. Additional challenges to getting deals done are the bid-ask spread, rising operational costs, and extensive change-of-ownership property improvement plans (PIPs). As ownership groups consider placing their hotel assets on the market, they should consider how these headwinds are affecting buyer underwriting so that they have realistic pricing expectations.