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July 16, 2009

Strategic Hotels Chief Says Corporate Cutbacks to Trim Bookings | bloomberg.com

Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc., owner of the Four Seasons in Washington, will probably see a decline in luxury bookings through this year as companies cut travel to avoid public reproach, Chief Executive Officer Laurence Geller said. Criticism of corporate spending “had a tremendous effect on us for probably three immediate months with a lingering effect of six more months,” Geller said in an interview. “It was almost as if something turned the spigot off.”

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July 15, 2009

Expedia, Hotwire pay San Francisco its taxes | sfgate.com

Late Monday afternoon, Expedia Inc. and Hotwire Inc. wired over approximately $35 million they had previously refused to pay the city in hotel occupancy taxes. The payment came in the wake of a California appeals court decision rejecting their petition against a Los Angeles Superior Court ruling that the disputed taxes are subject to the "pay first" rule.

San Francisco, California, United States

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July 15, 2009

Aloft... A Hip Addition to the Inn Crowd | washingtonpost.com

The hotel lobby was going off. Opposite the check-in counter, a DJ was spinning tunes, adding another layer of energy and noise to the reunion of Overbrook High School's Class of '89. In the recessed lounge, previously occupied by guests with luggage and plane tickets, revelers chatted up old friends, the conversation flowing as smoothly as the cocktails mixed near the computer station. Outside in the courtyard, a checkerboard of brown and green ottomans, unrequited love got a second chance.

washingtonpost.com

District of Columbia, United States

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July 14, 2009

New lifestyle brands stake ground, anticipate turnaround | hotelnewsnow.com

Since 2005, there have been more than 40 new lodging brands introduced in the U.S. alone, half of which are considered boutique or lifestyle brands. So how are these new lifestyle launches holding up under the crushing economy? In general, the boutique and lifestyle segment is suffering the greatest revenue per available room declines of all types of hotels, said Bjorn Hanson, clinical associate professor, Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University.

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July 8, 2009

Art Canvases That Include Shag Carpet | nytimes.com

Venice has its Biennale. Basel, Switzerland, has its Art Basel. And Reno has the NadaDada Motel, a jubilantly unpretentious art event in which some 100 artists rent rooms at two of the city’s vintage hotels and motels and temporarily transform nicotine-infused rooms into art. At NadaDada, one can find ceramic sea anemones on a simulated beach in one room (a comment on global warming displayed in El Cortez Hotel by Cindy Gunn) or encounter a bed in another room on which the bedspread and burgundy pillows are decorated with stencils of guns (“The Reno Gun Show,” also displayed in El Cortez, by Ann O’Lear).

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July 7, 2009

Meetings: Twice the Work, Half the Pay | nytimes.com

When meetings or conferences are canceled — a relatively common occurrence in these financially difficult times — hotels collect a fraction of the money they were expecting, and participants lose the chance to network or gain knowledge about their industry. But one group of hospitality professionals is literally watching its livelihood go down the drain as corporate events are pared to the bone — the corporate event planners hired by companies to book and coordinate meetings.

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July 6, 2009

For Choice Hotels, Recession Brings a Chance at Decisive Gains | washingtonpost.com

At first glance, Silver Spring-based Choice Hotels looks well-positioned to take advantage of the current economy. Its rooms are relatively inexpensive at less than $100 a night. Its 4,700 U.S. hotels under 10 brands are accessible to the middle-class family packed into an automobile. And the summer vacation season is in full swing. But the company, whose brands include Clarion, Comfort Inn and Econo Lodge, faces the same headwinds the rest of the lodging industry is seeing: a slowdown in new construction and pressures on profit margins.

washingtonpost.com

The next-gen metrics that move hotel P&L

Hotel tech has changed what's possible – and measurable. RevPAR and ADR aren't enough; discover the metrics that really matter.

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Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP)

External Article

July 6, 2009

Terranea Resort in LA Open in Challenging Times | nytimes.com

Last month, their $480 million hotel, the Terranea Resort, opened for business. But how much business remains to be seen. After 12 years of planning, the hotel, with 400 rooms and extensive recreational facilities, made its debut in what Mr. Lowe called “the most challenging market since World War II.” “People are still traveling,” he said, “but they’re shopping very carefully.” According to Smith Travel Research, hotels in Los Angeles had an average occupancy of 63.6 percent in May, down 14 percentage points from a year earlier.

Los Angeles, California, United States

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July 3, 2009

Gay-themed hotel opens in Ybor City FL | tampabay.com

A medical clinic and surgery center that once served Ybor City's Cuban community has taken on a new life as a gay-oriented hotel and men's club. The Ybor Resort & Spa opened last month on Eighth Avenue in the heart of the GaYbor District. Owners Vince Pawlowski and Fred Schwartz wanted to create a place where people visiting bars, restaurants and other gay businesses could stay for a weekend, a night or even a few hours.

Tampa, Florida, United States

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July 2, 2009

Choice Hotels CEO Sees Signs of Stabilization | cnbc.com

With more consumers ditching extravagant vacations and taking to the road on good, old-fashioned road trips, Choice Hotels International is finding itself in a good spot. "It seems like it has stabilized," CEO Steve Joyce says. "We are sort of in the position now where we are waiting to see if things will improve." Choice franchises value hotels brands such as Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, and Comfort Suites, and tends to benefit when leisure travelers take to the road. "Our typical customer is a drive customer," Joyce says. "Our drive locations are holding up better and we think those trends will continue."

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June 29, 2009

Pillow Fights at the Four Seasons | nytimes.com

ISADORE SHARP had a different coda in mind for the twilight of his career. The 77-year-old founder and C.E.O. of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, he was looking forward to some time with his wife, sons and grandchildren. A meticulous planner, he was carefully plotting his exit, and in 2007 he engineered the sale of the company, which manages more than 80 luxury hotels around the world, to two of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates and Prince Walid bin Talal, a nephew of the king of Saudi Arabia.

External Article

June 29, 2009

One-On-One With Four Seasons CEO Isadore Sharp: Sharp Eye On Superior Service | btnonline.com

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts founder, chairman and CEO Isadore Sharp spoke with BTN editors David Meyer and Michael B. Baker about economic change and the lessons of the past. Business Travel News: How important do corporate accounts remain to your business? Isadore Sharp: Very important. We're very conscious that we need to cater to the major corporations that have travel coordinated within their organization and negotiate all business. If they're proposing to give us many thousand room nights a year, our job is to make sure we give them a proper price for that guarantee. Every hotel, no matter the size, requires group business, meeting business, incentive business and corporate and individual accounts.

External Article

June 29, 2009

Oyster leaves hotel ratings to the pros | usatoday.com

A new travel website is taking a contrarian approach to an increasingly complicated — and controversial — question: How do I choose where to stay on vacation? Launched this week with reviews of 250 hotels and resorts in the Caribbean and Miami, Oyster Hotel Reviews aims to uncover lodging pearls through extensive reports and photos produced by 10 full-time journalists. Oyster says they book and stay anonymously at each property. Founder Elie Seidman told Business Week it would take about $40 million for Oyster to break even.

Visit HITEC 2026 in San Antonio!

HITEC is the center for the latest conversations on hospitality technology. Come and see the technology shaping the industry.

Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP)

External Article

June 29, 2009

Marriott, Starwood Need Four Years to Restore Hotel Room Rates | bloomberg.com

Marriott International Inc. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. are among U.S. hotel operators that may need four years to restore room rates to 2008 levels after slashing prices to spur demand. “We don’t see national average room rates getting back to 2008 levels until sometime in 2012 or even 2013,” Mark Woodworth, president of PKF Hospitality Research, said in an interview. “There were rate declines in 2001 and 2002, but until this year that was the only other time that happened in this industry in some 20 plus years.”

External Article

June 22, 2009

Low rates for US hotel rooms may outlast recession | guardian.co.uk

As U.S. hotels try to lure a shrinking number of business and leisure travelers, the industry appears to have adopted a new motto -- "Better cheap than empty." But as hotels slash rates and offer sweet deals to fill empty rooms during the recession, they may regret their largess if customers get permanently spoiled by cheap lodging. "There will be a resetting of rates and rate expectations for the foreseeable future," said Bjorn Hanson, lodging industry expert at New York University. "Even less expensive hotels will have to compete on rate more than they have already."

External Article

June 17, 2009

Online Travel | More Links in the Research Chain | nytimes.com

Last month, I outlined my methods for planning frugal trips, from setting up Google News alerts to reading local novels set in my destination. Many readers wrote in with tips of their own, including Web sites I’d never heard of or had yet to try. So I put them to the test. Up first, the battle of the booking sites. Reader Haskel suggested Mobissimo.com, whose fares, he wrote, “are very often cheaper than those on Kayak. It is a must-stop Web site for me.” Whitney, meanwhile, suggested Vayama.com, writing, “it has negotiated deals for international flights, plus the ease of use of the site is wonderful.” Mark considers SideStep.com “awesome,” while Michael Madison calls Dohop.com “a must-go site.”

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June 17, 2009

Rulings Threaten Expedia, Rivals With Paying Millions in Damages | wsj.com

Expedia Inc. and other online travel companies could be forced to pay millions in damages and uncollected taxes, under recent state court rulings in Georgia and Washington state. The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled Monday that Expedia must pay the city of Columbus, Ga., an occupancy tax based on the room rate paid by customers online, not just the wholesale price the company pays to hotels. The amount owed to Columbus will be determined by a trial court.

External Article

June 17, 2009

Frequent travelers redeem more miles as recession lingers | usatoday.com

Not so long ago, Art Manask would sit on his hotel points, letting them stack up like jets on a crowded runway. But in the past 12 months, with business lagging at his hospitality consulting company, Manask has used his Hilton HHonors points at least half a dozen times to get free rooms. He even plans some of his trips around whether there's a Hilton property nearby with a room he can snag as a reward.

External Article

June 15, 2009

USTA's Roger Dow Leads the Troops | successmtgs.com

Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, has come a long way from the housekeeping department of the Houston Marriott. At the start of a tour of duty in Vietnam, Sergeant Roger Dow kept some distance from his men. He believed it was the way to establish leadership; his squad quickly dispelled that notion. Someone must be on patrol 24-7, and Dow was in charge of the schedule. A soldier pointed out that Dow didn't have any patrol duty of his own. "I thought as a sergeant I was supposed to be the boss, which meant not having to do what the rest were doing. I realized the message I was communicating and took the 3 a.m. post," explains Dow. "Although I was scared to death, this turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my life." He was forced to lead in an environment where everyone's life was at risk.

successmtgs.com

External Article

June 12, 2009

InterContinental to Open 400 Hotels, Convert Stalled Projects | bloomberg.com

InterContinental Hotels Group Plc, owner of the Holiday Inn brand, plans to open 400 hotels this year and may work with developers to convert residential projects that have stalled. Halted developments in urban areas “are particularly interesting,” Jim Anhut, chief development officer at Windsor, England-based IHG, said in an interview. “We’ve had some good opportunities.”