Hilton Brand Makeover Starts With Lobby
“Hilton is not going to be the brand your father stayed at,” declared Hilton Hotels & Resorts global brand head Dave Horton Tuesday during a media tour of the newly renovated lobby at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner....
Benchmark Hospitality Embraces Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is the next big thing in hotel technology. Sometimes called software-as-a-service, cloud computing refers to hotel systems and software hosted at a brand or management company headquarters, a server farm or even a vendor facility. Hotels on the cloud no longer have the burden of housing and servicing hardware onsite; instead, a secure high-speed Internet connection gives them access to all their operational technologies....
Do AAA, Mobil Ratings Matter Anymore?
Hotel ratings were easy to understand in the pre-Internet days. The American Automobile Association awarded Diamond rating and Mobil used its Star ratings, both on a scale of one to five. While several other prominent organizations conduct ratings, and in 2009 Mobil Travel Guide licensed out to Forbes, for simplicity let’s focus our narrative on these two....
Design Awards: High Honors
From the towering 54-story L.A. Live project all the way down to the eight-story Padre Hotel in Bakersfield, CA, this year’s Design Award winners all stand out. Lodging Hospitality editors chose five projects to honor that displayed innovative, effective and creative architecture and design....
HEI Hotels Fights Unionization Moves
Students at prominent Ivy League campuses and other universities have called on academic officials to pull HEI Hotels and Resorts investment from their endowment funds because of alleged unfair labor practices at HEI-managed hotels. The move has had mixed results....
Vegas Building Business, Not New Casinos
The Cosmopolitan’s debut in December likely marked the end of a two-decade run of multibillion-dollar luxury developments on the Las Vegas Strip that began in 1989 with the opening of the Mirage. As the battle for customers rages amongst the five-star resorts—Wynn, Encore, Palazzo, Venetian, Aria, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and now the Cosmopolitan—news of Sahara’s closing comes as little surprise ...
Cosmopolitan Reaches New Heights in Vegas
It’s almost hidden, tucked down a long hallway on the third floor of the new Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The small pizza place without a name or storefront serves the best ...
An Owner’s Guide to the Chaotic World of Hotel Loan Restructuring
The following is intended as a practical guide to owners considering whether and how to restructure a hotel property that can’t support or refinance its current debt....
Expanded Gay Resort To Open in Fort Lauderdale
The results of a $4-million investment by Fort Lauderdale’s Royal Palms Hotel and Resort will be unveiled this month when the 20-year old, gay-oriented property debuts a 64-room annexation, an addition that will make it the largest hotel in North America targeted specifically to the gay male market. ...
CanCan Casino Could Help Boost Biloxi Business
If the $450-million mixed-use casino project in D’Iberville, MS looks and feels like it could fit in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, that’s because the man behind it has plenty of experience in those markets....
Hersha Hospitality Management Helps Clean the World
Hersha Hospitality Management takes its obligation as a steward of the environment seriously. The Philadelphia-based operator of more than 80 diverse lodging properties recently partnered with Clean the World, a non-profit group that fights the spread of preventable diseases by recycling hotel soaps and bottled amenities. Like all its sustainability and social action initiatives, Hersha looks at the partnership as a way to do well by doing good....
America: The Land of Opportunity
Uprisings and protests of oppressed people throughout the world, including the recent Middle East freedom revolutions, underscore how advantaged Americans are. The U.S. has always been the gold standard and beacon of freedom to which the rest of the world looks. Wikipedia says, “The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success.” ...
Hoteliers Have Plenty to Worry About
The hotel industry is grappling with a lot of issues these days: the still-weak consumer economy, stagnant rate growth, worries over potentially restrictive legislation in Washington and in state capitals, and political conditions and natural events beyond its control. Here are a few other concerns that could derail the ongoing recovery in the lodging business:...
Carlson Upgrades Loyalty Program
With 6.5 million and counting, Carlson is on target to build its loyalty program to 10 million by 2013. To crank up the numbers the company is replacing Goldpoints Plus with a new Club Carlson program. Launched March 31, Club Carlson has no blackout dates for its enhanced menu of awards....
Vantage Hospitality Training Aims to Standardize Service
Vantage Hospitality Group is taking its three-year-old Vantage Academy on a 13-city tour. The free one-day training program is all about hands-on activities. Vantage is owner of America’s Best Value Inn and the Lexington Collection brands, with 900 member hotels in North America and China. ...
Security of Guest Data Worries Hotel Technology Executives
The Hotel Technology Next Generation North American members meeting held in San Diego last month gave attendees an inside look at what keeps the industry’s top C-level technology executives awake at night. IT leaders from Hyatt, Starwood, Marriott and other companies put the spotlight on what is required from technology suppliers to earn their keep. ...
Timeshare Executives Stay Positive Despite Business Downturn
Like all developers, timeshare executives like to look on the bright side of things. That was the mood at the annual American Resort Development Association conference, which wrapped up yesterday in the timeshare capital of the world, Orlando. Despite the biggest downturn in the history of the 40-year-old vacation ownership industry, most speakers at the event chose to focus on what they believe is a rosier future for the business....
Travaasa Willing to Spend Time, Money on New Brand
Joy Berry and Chris Manning vow to deliver unique experiences through Travaasa Destinations, their new brand. The Denver-based co-founders—she’s president, he’s principal—look to acquire and then turn underperforming resorts into moneymakers in a patient, painstaking process....
IHG Revamps Priority Club Rewards Program
After surveying more than 10,000 frequent travelers and conducting three years of research, InterContinental Hotels Group is relaunching its Priority Club Rewards program. Members will receive redesigned membership cards in the coming weeks and have access to more rewards and ways to redeem points....
‘Every Hotel Lender is Not Made Equal’
It would be an overstatement to say that the U.S. lodging industry is on a roll given the uneven pace of recovery across product segments and individual markets, but the sector has climbed out of a big hole. Room demand rose 7.7% in 2010, after contracting 6.1% in 2009 and 2.5% in 2008, according to PKF Hospitality Research. ...
Fractional Ownership Business Waits for Upturn
It is a humbled, but hopeful fractional segment of the vacation ownership industry that’s gathering this week in San Francisco. The 11th annual Ragatz Associates Fractional Interest Real Estate Conference brings together developers, hoteliers, operators and service providers to chart the future of a business battered in recent years by the economy and a weak lending environment....
Solomons To Take Over for Cosslett as IHG CEO
Saying he had been considering it for quite a while, Andy Cosslett announced early this morning he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of InterContinental Hotels Group on June 30. IHG Chairman David Webster announced current Chief Financial Officer and Head of Commercial Development Richard Solomons would take over on July 1....
Hunter Honors Legendary Hotelier Bruce White
Organizers of last week’s Hunter Hotel Investment Conference honored one of the hotel industry’s dynamic, but low-profile entrepreneurs: Bruce White of White Lodging Services. White was recipient of the conference’s second Award for Excellence and Inspiration. ...
La Quinta Puts Customers, Culture First
What began as an idea from a franchisee at one of La Quinta’s first brand council meetings has evolved into the company’s newly defined culture and the debut of its brand customer service experience, “Here For You.”...
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