March 2013

From the outside, the January 2013 opening of The Alexander in Indianapolis went as smoothly as possible. Upon arrival at the new downtown property, the first guests enjoyed 209 state-of-the-art guestrooms, a modern mixology program at hip new lounge Plat 99, and an exquisite collection of 40 works of art selected by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, among other top amenities. What they didn’t see were all the problems that occurred during the new property’s

Last year Joie de Vivre and Thompson hotels merged to form Commune Hotels and Resorts, with Niki Leondakis, formerly of Kimpton, stepping in as the new company’s CEO in November. Other big announcements included acquisition of the historic Chicago Athletic Association building and the development of a new micro-hotel concept that will debut...

Despite the many devices hotel guests bring with them, the television remains the centerpiece of every guestroom. It’s the one thing capable of delivering a widescreen view of all the news, sports, movies, and broadcast shows guests are looking for. And even though there are some aspects, such as ordering room service, accessing directories, and checking out, in which the TV has become even more useful to guests, the average hotel television falls well sho...

On a recent tour of a $1-million-per-key brand boutique hotel in New York City, I asked my guide, “What is the experience I should expect?” She replied, “We are here to help you design your own experience.” To me, that’s like inviting a group of friends over for a dinner party and expecting them to cook for you. The hotel appeared to have it all: an A-plus location, opulent and refined finishes by renowned designers, and a food and beverage operat...

Carlson Rezidor executives unveiled a new brand identity for its upper-midscale, select-service brand at the 2013 Country Inns and Suites Business Conference, held this week at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, in Miami, Fla. The leadership and branding teams showed off the new logo, design elements, and direction of the brand to a record crowd of more than 700 hotel owners, operators, and general managers. And one thing is for sure—Country Inns and Suites is...

Ten years ago, Choice Hotels opened the doors of a property in Norfolk, Va., that placed the Sleep Inn and Quality Inn & Suites brands under one roof. It featured a separate lobby and mostly autonomous public spaces for each brand, but a shared pool and back-of-the-house operations. The dual-branded nature of the hotel helped it attract leisure guests at different price points, but it was the operational efficiencies of the model that turned heads in t...

At its annual convention and trade show in Houston this week, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association reported record membership, revenue, and profit in 2012. AAHOA has reached 11,165 members—a long way from its humble beginnings in 1989. In addition to focusing on education, community service, and products and services for members, the organization will be strengthening its advocacy efforts in 2013. “Our work on advocacy will have a direct i...

Although year-over-year total pipeline counts are flat, the internal pipeline metrics that drive future openings have been trending upward. For six quarters new project announcements into the pipeline have exceeded the bottom established in the second quarter of 2011. For construction starts, the rolling four-quarter total has been trending upward for the past eight quarters. Lodging Econometrics expects 500 projects (55,088 rooms) to open in 2013...

The U.S. lodging industry recovery made great progress in 2011 with more than 70 percent of the hotels in the nation showing increases in both revenue and profits during the year. Many industry prognosticators are expecting this trend to continue the next three years. Based on PKF’s December 2012 Hotel Horizons forecast, U.S. hotels will enjoy compound annual growth (CAGR) in rooms revenue (RevPAR) of 6.5 percent through 2016. In turn, this should result i...

For five decades, Maury and Annabelle East have been making visitors feel welcome to their little corner of Ontario. Located near the picturesque Killarney Provincial Park and the rugged waters of northern Georgian Bay, their property, the Killarney Mountain Lodge, boasts an outdoor wilderness adventure program that takes full advantage of the red granite shores of the bay and the white quartzite La Cloche Mountains. But getting to this point wasn’t easy: ...

Historically, hotel owners and operators have viewed cleaning as a cost center. Consequently, decisions about housekeeping expenditures have focused solely on the amount spent. Yet, several recent studies have revealed that a relatively modest investment can have a significant effect on a hotel’s bottom line. Here are a few ways spending more on your property’s cleaning program can pay off. 1. Image Enhancement A recent study by Hotelschool T...

With its central location in Silicon Valley and its close proximity to Stanford University, the Garden Court Hotel knows that the business community surrounding the property is full of tech startups that are developing ideas and applications for the future. To help budget-strapped startups reach their goals and grow their businesses, the Garden Court is offering a special discounted package that allows small tech companies the use of the hotel’s ...

On Friday, Congress failed to come to a resolution regarding the sequestration, and large, automatic spending cuts are set for federal programs. By the end of the fiscal year, $85 billion in cuts are expected to take place. Although the extent and effects of these cuts are not yet known, they will likely deliver a blow to the travel and hospitality industries, as federal agencies furlough workers and cut travel and meeting budgets. “Our ...

The Jobs Originated through Launching Travel (JOLT) Act, a bill reintroduced today in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Joe Heck (R-Nev.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), may help facilitate international travel to the United States while boosting the economy and creating jobs. The bill, which has received support from the U.S. Travel Association, the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA), and several hotel leaders, will expand t...

Decades before employees began using Facebook and other social media to vent, complain, or otherwise discuss their wages and other working conditions, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in the 1930s to give workers across the country the right to engage in such activities. When the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded that an employer had disciplined an employee for engaging what is known as “protected concerted activity,” t...