November 2012

Since 2006, La Quinta has added 399 properties to its portfolio, nearly doubling in size and exceeding the growth rate of the competition—Country Inn & Suites, Hampton Inn, and Holiday Inn Express—by a wide margin. Of course, La Quinta has a lot more growing to do to match the property base of some of its larger competitors, but by every indication the company is off to a great start. “We are positioned very well to take advantage of this c

As noise continues to be a leading guest complaint within the industry, hotels are seeking ways to reduce the racket and bump up satisfaction scores. One way to achieve this is by installing in-room sound masking systems. Lodging Online Editor Deidre Wengen spoke with acoustical expert Niklas Moeller, vice president of K.R. Moeller Associates Ltd., to learn how sound masking t...

According to a recent study by DinarStandard, a U.S. based marketing, research, and advisory firm focused on Muslim markets, the global outbound expenditure of Muslim tourism in 2011 was $126.1 billion. This figure is larger than the tourist spending of Germany and almost double that of China. And Reem El Shafaki, a senior associate with DinarStandard, believes Muslim travelers are underserved in America and says that hotels that cater to the needs of Musl...

After organizing and executing the 32nd annual Sprint Four the Cure 5-kilometer run and walk in September to benefit cancer research, the Four Seasons Hotel Washington will spend most of November planning for its yearly “Thanksgiving on the Mayflower,” which serves a traditional holiday meal to servicemen and women in the capital. Once the Thanksgiving event wraps, the luxury property will dive into preparations for the Georgetown Jingle, a family-friendly ...

Economic development in Brazil is booming, accelerated by a growing export economy and the country’s selection as host to the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016. With 259 hotels and 43,827 rooms coming online, Brazil has the largest pipeline in Latin America and the fourth largest pipeline in the world. It’s 45 percent of the total Latin America pipeline. New openings in Brazil will rise to 46 hotels and 8,182 rooms in 2013,...

In the summer of 1998, a Dallas gal packed her bags and moved to the Caribbean to pursue a hospitality career. Now, Karen Whitt is general manager of Regent Palms Turks and Caicos and president of the Turks & Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association. Leaving behind friends and family was emotionally tough, and it took time to adjust to island culture, but Whitt embraced the opportunity to launch a new and promising career. “I don’t think there is any ...

Finding the perfect hotel-restaurant match involves soul searching, “first dates,” compromise, and trust, in order to build a healthy and successful business relationship. “Without the trust that you’re both in it for the same reasons with the same objectives, then it becomes adversarial,” says restaurant, retail, and foodservice consultant Arlene Spiegel. “The last thing you want as a hotel owner is to have an adversary living in your ground-...

Hotel cyber-security is facing increasing scrutiny from federal regulators. Case in point, last June the Federal Trade Commission sued Wyndham Worldwide hotels after apparently unsophisticated hackers allegedly stole the credit card information of more than 600,000 customers leading to a more than $10.6 million fraud loss. Of particular note, the FTC has accused Wyndham of maintaining a “deceptive” privacy policy, which states that Wyndham engages in “comme...

CHICAGO—The Board of Directors of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Inc. announced today that Laurence S. Geller is stepping down as president and chief executive officer and member of the Company's Board of Directors, effective immediately. Raymond L. Gellein, Jr., chairman of the Company's Board of Directors, will assume the additional role of chief executive officer. Mr. Geller will serve in an advisory role to Mr. Gellein until the end of the year. In ...

The demand for high-speed Internet access at hotels has never been greater. Fifty-five percent of hotel guests used the service in 2011, up from just 20 percent five years earlier, according to a recent study by J.D. Power and Associates. While the increased volume strains hotel bandwidth, the study found that only 11 percent of guests using hotel Internet were charged an extra fee to connect. That might be because guests charged a separate Internet fee wer...

In its inaugural ‘State of the Meeting Industry’ survey, Destination Hotels & Resorts tapped a diverse dataset of 383 planners from around the United States to gauge their interest and focus for 2013. The company asked meeting planners to comment on new trends, tools, and resources that can set a property apart from the pack. The results yielded specific trends for hotels and resorts, and one overarching theme: cautious optimism. More than 30 percent of...

In July, Cody Brocious, a systems engineer for Mozilla, revealed a security flaw in the Onity HT locking system at the Black Hat security conference held in Las Vegas. Brocious demonstrated a “hardware hack” that allows a homemade device, created with readily available, store-bought parts, to plug into the port on the bottom of Onity locks, read the lock’s memory, issue a command, and electronically break into any hotel room where these locks are installed....

The momentum behind the United States’ National Travel and Tourism strategy, which includes an ambitious goal of attracting 100 million international visitors annually by the end of 2021, makes it a ripe time for lodging industry members to get involved with grassroots campaigns on legislative and regulatory issues, a group of panelists said Monday during the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s fall conference in Manhattan. Women in Lodging (WIL), the AH&LA’s industry-wide forum for female hospit...

At PKF Hospitality Research, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the strong rebound in lodging demand that has occurred since the depths of the great recession in 2009. While the positive impact this has had on room revenue has been a frequent topic of discussion, we think it’s worth analyzing the performance of the second largest source of revenue for full-service hotels—food and beverage. To understand recent trends in hotel food and beverage,...

As part of a keynote presentation at the 2012 International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show (IHMRS), representatives from the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute (EI) stressed the importance of certification programs in the hospitality industry. EI offers over 20 different types of certification programs through its partners worldwide. Chris Jack, vice president of certification for EI, said hotels and employees that gain certification help prom...

Travel in the United States is expected to continue to grow in 2013 according to a recent forecast released by the U.S. Travel Association, but the rate of growth is projected to slow down compared to previous years. “For 2013, the number of trips taken by Americans is expected to increase to a new record high,” says David Huether, senior vice president of research and economics for the U.S. Travel Association. “But the growth we expect next ye...