December 2012

In a cozy nook at the Algonquin Hotel’s Round Table restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, Hotel Impossible star Anthony Melchiorri enjoys a bowl of oatmeal with his daughters Mia, 13, and Nina, 10. Earlier that morning, they dropped off Mia’s twin sister, Cara, at a private high school for “buddy day,” so she could experience a typical day in the life of a student. Melchiorri welled up as he said goodbye to her. His daughters were growing up so fast.
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Creative partnerships within the hotel industry can translate to innovation at its best. Just ask “Iron Chef” Jose Garces, renowned for his modern interpretations of Latin and Hispanic cuisine in his 15 restaurants in five U.S. cities. In the last few years, he has demonstrated that joining the hospitality world can be a mutually beneficial business—for both restaurants and i...

It’s no surprise that the co-founder of the famed aerobatic troupe Cirque du Soleil, Daniel Gauthier, has entered the hospitality world with a dramatic performance of balance and agility by introducing a hip, inventive (and somewhat surreal) eco-friendly resort complex, Le Massif de Charlevoix, a distinctive Quebec destination that’s been receiving rave reviews. Cons...

Last October, Jonathan Gray took the stage at the annual Motel 6 brand conference in Las Vegas to explain why the Blackstone Group’s real estate division, which he heads, was investing so much money into the brand. It was the day after the private equity firm finalized its $1.9 billion acquisition of Motel 6 and the 42-year-old Gray was there to sell the move to the hundreds of...

As a professional with more than a half-century of experience in the hospitality business, Michael Leven is considered a hotel industry icon—as well as a frequent innovator and inspirational leader. Through his enthusiasm, energy, and desire to create new opportunities within the marketplace, Leven has clearly shown that one passionate individual can grow and transform an indus...

John Hardy started his eponymous property services company in 1992 to provide development, management, and design expertise to hotel owners and investors. He comes from an architecture background initially and spent seven years as group vice president of architecture and construction at Interstate Hotels before branching out on his own. Lodging Managing Editor Megan Sull...

As communities along the Jersey coast put back together the pieces of their hurricane-damaged lives, hotels from Cape May to New York City assessed the devastation and worked quickly to re-open for business. John Daily, general manager of Congress Hall, a historic resort in Cape May, bounced back especially quick since he never followed Governor Christie’s edict and closed down to begin with. Despite mandatory evacuation orders, he kept the 106-room hotel o...

Each year, J.D. Power conducts its North American Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study, seeking the opinions of approximately 50-60,000 travelers. Noise has regularly ranked first in the list of complaints, industry wide. It irritates guests during the day and continues to affect their ability to sleep long after they have adjusted to their new surroundings. The financial impact of this problem can be substantial. Dissatisfied guests are less like...

On Wednesday, CNBC will air a detailed look into Marriott International’s global hotel empire with the documentary “Hotel: Behind Closed Doors at Marriott.” The hour-long piece, hosted by Scott Wapner of “Fast Money Halftime Report,” will give viewers a glimpse into the lodging giant’s past, present, and future plans. “At CNBC, we’ve done documentaries on many large, Fortune 500 companies. Marriott is hard to ignore,” says Wapner. “They are the...

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Only days after Sandy paralyzed the northeast and left Staten Island in shambles, a young couple found an oasis of happiness at a Hilton Garden Inn ballroom in Bloomfield, an industrial neighborhood on the northwest coast of the borough, as they celebrated their wedding on Nov. 2. The bride’s parents had just lost their Queens home—all guests were affected by the storm in some capacity—but everyone pushed their worries aside to embrace the joyful occasion. ...

As John Lee sees it, hotel brands can’t lure customers in with a cane like carnival barkers. Attracting more guests relies on building relationships, trust, and ultimately loyalty. For more than 12 years, Lee has overseen everything from advertising and public relations to direct marketing and promotions in his role as vice president of brand marketing for Embassy Suites Hotels. “I...

This week Cambria Suites, the upscale, all-suite brand in the Choice Hotels family, begins construction on three new properties in the New York area—two in downtown Manhattan (Times Square and Chelsea) and one in White Plains. Mike Murphy, senior vice president for Cambria Suites, says the introduction of the brand to the New York market demonstrates that Cambria Suites is on a fast-paced track for growth. “We’re going to launch these three hot...

The Expedia Traveler Preference (ETP) program, a new agency model that gives customers the choice of paying at the hotel upon checkout rather than paying Expedia upon booking, was a hot topic at the online travel agency’s annual partner conference in Las Vegas last week. Preliminary test results show that the program is increasing both volume and value of bookings and is attracting more international travelers. However, many hotel owners are concerned over ...

With the election over, President Obama faces an unprecedented series of fiscal challenges, some of which will be played out even before his Jan. 20, 2013 inauguration. The resolution of these challenges will affect every industry, but are especially important to the lodging industry, which is very sensitive to the global marketplace at a time when the United States has yet to regain the share of the travel market that it had prior to 2001. The fi...

The way travelers communicate on the road has changed dramatically over the years, and these changes become evident when analyzing the revenue earned by U.S. hotels from their guests for use of telecommunication devices and services. As part of our annual Trends in the Hotel Industry survey, we noticed that revenue from telecommunications—phones, fax machines, and Internet connections—at the average U.S. hotel has declined from a peak of $1,274 per availab...

Jacob Tomsky has a lot to say about hotels—and he’s not sugarcoating any of it. The author of the newly released Heads in Beds spent over ten years working in the lodging industry, holding down positions ranging from valet parking attendant and front desk agent to housekeeping manager at luxury properties in New Orleans and New York City. His book is a no-ho...

AAA forecasts 93.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home during the upcoming holidays, a 1.6 percent increase over the 91.8 million people who traveled one year ago. This year’s expected travel volume is the second highest in the past decade. AAA defines the Year-End holiday travel season as Friday, December 22 to Monday, January 1, 2013. More than one in four Americans are expected to take a trip this season. “Typically, Am...

According to PKF Hospitality Research LLC, the U.S. lodging industry continues the extremely healthy upward trend it began in 2Q10, with ongoing gains in all the major business measurements: lodging demand, occupancy,average daily rate (ADR), and revenue per available room (RevPAR). Looking forward, the company is forecasting a perpetuation of this growth through 2016. According to the recently released December 2012 edition of Hotel Horizons, RevPAR for...

A lot of hotel owners write Blanche Garcia, interior decorating expert on Hotel Impossible and principal and interior designer of B. Garcia Designs, asking her to renovate their properties in the same amount of days and within the same budget as she does on the show. Garcia might make it look easy on TV, but updating a hotel on a tight budget and creating designs that offer longevity requires logic, meditation, and experience. Here are a few tips Garcia off...

The European economy continues to struggle but there may be a recovery in sight for hotel development. The Europe construction project pipeline is down year-over-year by 5 percent yet shows a slight upward trend off the cyclical bottom of 697 projects and 117,964 rooms set in the third quarter of 2010. The pipeline stands at 767 projects and 125,764 rooms for the second quarter of 2012. The internal metrics that predict future pipeline growth h...

The recession brought with it a slump in meeting business that hotels are only now seeing improve. Now the race is on to drive in more business. To attract corporate and group accounts and keep up with current travel trends, many hotels have reworked traditional meetings to provide more flexibility into their on-site spaces and tweaked packages to make them more appealing to value-conscious planners and guests. One route some hotels are taking ...

A new report published by the U.S. Travel Association shows that the travel industry has provided a vital catalyst for job growth in the past 30 years—particularly in the middle-class sector. The report states that 4 million travel-industry workers earn a middle-class income or higher, making up 53 percent of the total travel workforce. This makes the travel industry—and by extension lodging, which makes up 19 percent of the industry’s 7.8 million workers—o...

After a strong performance in 2012, with revenue and reservations up 14 percent and a 35 percent increase in website traffic, Vantage Hospitality looks ahead toward international growth. At the company’s annual conference at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas this week, which drew approximately 1,000 attendees, President and CEO Roger Bloss said Vantage now has 1,091 properties. Of those properties, 1,061 are Americas Best Value Inns (including its...