February 2013

From the days of the Gold Rush to the turn of the 20th century, Chinese and Italian immigrants caught fish and Dungeness crabs at Meiggs’ Wharf in San Francisco to eke out a living. The Best Western Plus Tuscan Inn is situated at the original endpoint of this historic landing—long since transformed into a section of the larger tourist-filled Fisherman’s Wharf area. When Walnut Hill Group purchased the property in February 2011, the real estate investment c

In January 2012, David Duncan assumed the role of Denihan Hospitality Group’s president after serving as its chief financial officer since 2003. And it was a fruitful year, as the boutique owner-operator launched a West Coast development office, signed management agreements for the Mansfield, Franklin, and Shoreham hotels in New York City, and...

Jim Amorosia arrived a little late to our meeting at ALIS last week. The president and CEO of G6 Hospitality, the company that was created to manage the Motel 6 and Studio 6 hotel chains in the wake of last year’s acquisition by Blackstone, had been held up at a AH&LA CEO roundtable discussion that went long due to an animated discuss...

Carlson Rezidor is well on track to achieve its global growth goals by the end of 2015, having signed 70 new hotels last year and reaching 1,310 properties in operations and its pipeline, year to date. This growth is happening even in the face of eliminating more than 20 percent of the hotels in the portfolio that were underperforming. "I'm comfortable that if we progress at that pace, we will make our target of 1,500 hotels by 2015," said Thorste...

Building specs in the hotel/motel industry have changed considerably in the last few years. Namely, property owners and developers are making fewer decisions solely based on the initial cost of construction. Now, they also demand economic value of a green development, looking for meaningful return on investment from their environmentally conscious new-build and retrofit projects. In part, this new view is a result of rapidly changing municipal and...

When Grace Leo helped the former Millennium UN Plaza Hotel create a new identity, she knew it needed to be stylish, sophisticated, and sexy. But more than anything else, the new brand had to be memorable. In September, Millennium completed the first phase of an extensive three-part renovation of the Manhattan property. The company invested $30 million into the West Tower, making over the 154 rooms from top to bottom, adding a lobby café, and reva...

International travel continues to be a lucrative market for U.S. destinations and attractions. According to the U.S. Travel Association, approximately 65 million people traveled to the States from international destinations in 2012. On average, international travelers also spend five times more than domestic travelers. “International travelers provide tremendous opportunity to the US hotelier,” says Adam Anderson, director of industry relations at...

Steve Joyce, president and CEO of Choice Hotels, is in good spirits. The company is coming off a strong 2012 performance and it recently announced two deals in the upscale and international markets. The first, a marketing partnership with Bluegreen Vacations, adds 21 new resorts to Choice's upscale Ascend Collection. The second, a deal with U.K. hotel operator Akkeron...

For some hoteliers, group travel seems like trying to lasso wild horses. Like an unruly herd, the group market continually shifts, heading in one direction, then another, year after year. With different—often more demanding—needs than individual travelers, wrangling group travel may seem like too much of a wild ride for some. But for many properties, group travel is essential to the bottom line. “Group business is very important especially durin...

The facts are staggering. According to water.org, 780 million people around the world do not have access to clean and safe water; every 20 seconds a child dies from a water-related illness; and water, sanitation, and hygiene-related problems kill more than 3.4 million people each year. But Karena Albers and Jennifer Willig, founders of Whole World Water, believe that the hospitality and tourism industry can play a big role in solving the worldwide crisis.<...

Time is money. For the lodging industry, this is especially applicable when it comes to cleaning costs. Many facility managers assume they can multiply the number of guestrooms by some theoretical productivity rate to determine the time and resources needed to clean their hotels, but the results are generally inaccurate. Workloading, which involves calculating time standards for each task and area within the facility, is a reliable way to determine cleanin...

Hotels are cutting costs and guests are noticing. What can the hospitality industry do to lay worries about guest satisfaction to rest? Hotel satisfaction is the lowest it has been in seven years, according to a J.D. Power and Associates’ survey of more than 60,000 guests staying at North American hotels. This could spell serious trouble for hotel executives. Guests’ diminished satisfaction may have resulted from cuts made in a poor economy tha...

This week the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) announced the appointment of Katherine Lugar as its new president and CEO. Lugar will replace long-serving Joe McInerney beginning on April 17, and it appears that lobbying and advocacy efforts will be a top priority as she takes the helm. “As I began to talk to the AH&LA, its membersh...

Are you a hotel that wants to highlight and promote your property and services in a visually dynamic, technologically savvy way? There’s an app for that. Today’s travelers are dependent on mobile devices, and hotels are constantly trying to keep ahead of the curve. Having a hotel app is an essential marketing tool that can generate incremental revenue and boost guest satisfaction scores. And AppyHotel, a new software platform created specifically ...

Many hoteliers are reluctant restaurateurs, and for a good reason: Restaurants are even more labor intensive than hotels. A standalone restaurant is doing extremely well if it achieves a net operating income (NOI) of more than 20 percent, since the norm is 10 percent or less. Add these two elements together, which is the exact scenario we have in full-service hotels, and your NOI is negatively impacted from the drag caused by the food and beverage departme...

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.—Less than a year after opening its doors to the public, Atlantic City's Revel will file for bankruptcy. The resort casino announced that it has reached an agreement with a majority of its lenders to significantly reduce its debt through a debt-for-equity conversion. Revel plans to implement the restructuring through voluntary, prepackaged Chapter 11 cases, and intends to complete the restructuring early this summer. “[The] anno...

When David Anderone and Alex Carlton joined forces to form an online travel site, they created it primarily for themselves and people like them. Anderone has a background running A&R and music departments at companies such as Sony Music and MySpace Records, while Carlton founded Funkin, a 100 percent natural global beverage that is carried across the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. They wanted to create a booking site that was unlike all of the other online...

The hospitality industry is ramping up the volume, velocity, and variety of data it collects and stores. Hotels are tracking everything from simple online and offline transactions to social media, customer relationship management, search, clickstream, geo-location, and mobile data records. The goal is to leverage this information to attract new guests and provide better service than competitors. In the process the industry’s storage and processing demands ...

The definition of select service within the lodging industry may vary from person to person, but there is no doubt that properties in this segment are the most popular among developers. Using the broadest definition of select service, this category comprised an estimated 85 percent of the total projects in the development pipeline according to the October 2012 U.S. Hotel Pipeline Outlook report from Smith Travel Research. While developers may be i...

Smart renovation projects require extensive planning, exploratory work, the right players, and proper execution to go off without a hitch. Fred Roedel III, co-manager of Roedel Companies and president of ROK Builders, shares best practices. Team Work Build an experienced team to assess the hot...

The hospitality industry is a competitive one with thousands of choices that need to be made nearly every day. From what thread-count sheets to purchase to how big the kiosk monitor should be, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details and sometimes miss the bigger picture. A crucial choice that every hotel needs to make is regarding its Wi-Fi network. While wireless access has been treated as a network of convenience, today’s guests are very demanding, b...

For most of us, the impressions we leave on this earth come in the form of either the families we raise or the careers we fashion. Hank Thomas has done just fine on both fronts. He’s a father of two and grandfather of five, and he’s been a successful restaurant and hotel franchisee. But none of that will be front and center when discussing his lasting legacy. That’s because Thomas was one of the original “Freedom Riders,” and his willingness to wa...