With the growth of the celebrity industry its no wonder that celebrity hotels are becoming more famous. And we don’t mean the Hilton! We mean the hotels that celebrities are booking into along with their entourage and ever present paparazzi. These celebrity hotels are increasing the notoriety and reputation as the place to be and be seen.
Lowe Enterprises Investors (LEI) announced today that Lowe Resort Finance Investment Partners, a discretionary investment fund managed by LEI, has provided $75 million in mezzanine financing to a joint venture between Bayrock Group and Sapir Organization for the development of the 413-unit Trump SoHo condominium-hotel project in the SoHo district of Manhattan. Lowe Resort Finance Investment Partners offers mezzanine debt and preferred equity financing for resort and hotel properties throughout the US and Canada. Read more
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Other investments sites for venture capital includes Berkeley International Capital Corporation
Choice Hotels International (NYSE:CHH) continues to grow with the announcement of 55 newly-opened franchised properties during the month of July. The openings include hotels in 18 states and 10 countries and will add more than 4,003 rooms to the company’s existing 440,000-plus rooms. Select properties that opened in July include – Read more
The hotel construction boom continues in Hendricks and Marion counties, just west of the new passenger terminal at Indianapolis International Airport.
Three more Hilton-brand hotels, ranging from four to seven stories tall and totaling 395 rooms, could be under construction this year.
Local hotel developers confirmed their plans for the three new buildings next to the Six Points Road interchange of I-70. Read more
Hawaii hotel occupancy is still below 2006 numbers, while room rates continue to exceed last year’s.
For the week of July 22-28, statewide hotel occupancy is down 7 percentage points to 79.6 percent. On Oahu, the occupancy rate is down 13 percentage points to 78.6 percent, according to the latest report from Hospitality Advisors and Smith Travel Research.
Things are better on Kauai, however, which filled 87.3 percent of its rooms, the highest occupancy in the state. That represented an increase of 12.6 percentage points from the same period last year. Read more
Harlem already has multimillion-dollar condos and an office building that houses ex-President Bill Clinton. Next on the list for the area’s evolving gentrification are plans for luxury hotels expected to soon break ground.
A 19-story hotel with as many as 260 rooms is planned for Fifth Avenue and 125th Street. It will include banquet and meeting space.
A few blocks away, at 124th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, where an Associated supermarket once stood, space has been cleared, possibly for a fancy W Hotel.
Either project would become Manhattan’s first major hotel built north of 110th Street in 40 years. Read more
Steve Sackman knew it would be a major undertaking to replace more than 5,000 light bulbs at the 212-room hotel.Yet the upscale Tarrytown House Estate & Conference Center expects a major payoff in lower utility bills as a result of the investment. The new compact fluorescent bulbs installed in the guest rooms, hallways, conference rooms and the lobby last 10 times longer and use far less energy than conventional light bulbs. Sackman said it is good news for the environment because each new bulb will save about 450 pounds of power-plant emissions over its lifetime.
“It is the right thing to do from a standpoint of cost savings and being a more profitable organization,” said Sackman, the regional director of sales and marketing at Tarrytown House. “But it also is about being a socially and environmentally responsible organization. That is certainly at the front of everyone’s mind right now.” Read more
Hospitality Properties Trust today announced that it has sold 18 Homestead Studio Suites hotels (2,399 rooms) for $205.35 million. HPT expects to recognize a gain on this sale of approximately $95 million.
HPT purchased these 18 hotels in 1999 from Homestead Village, Inc. (which was then a publicly owned company) for $145 million. The expected gain reflects depreciation expense realized by HPT since 1999. Simultaneous with this purchase, these hotels were leased by HPT to a subsidiary of that seller for minimum rent of $15,960,000/year plus percentage rent based upon increases in gross revenues at the hotels. In 2006, the percentage rent received by HPT for these hotels was approximately $509,000. Read more
Lodgian, Inc. , one of the nation’s largest independent owners and operators of full-service hotels, today announced it had sold the 202-room Holiday Inn hotel in Ft. Wayne, Ind. and the 159-room Holiday Inn in Bridgeport, W. Va. to undisclosed buyers in separate transactions for an aggregate price of $5.6 million. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.
HREC Investment Advisors represented Lodgian in both transactions. “Our disposition program, which was announced in November 2006, continues as planned,” Ed Rohling, chief executive officer of Lodgian. “We now have sold 22 of the 27 non-core hotels designated in the program, have an additional three properties under contract and two hotels being actively marketed.” Read more
The greening of the Habitat Suites hotel in Austin started with a simple decision in 1991: The hotel stopped using pesticides on the property.
“We’re not pulling out machine guns to kill a roach,” says general manager Natalie Marquis. “It’s enlightened self-interest.”
Since then, the hotel (www.habitatsuites.com) has become more environmentally friendly. Some measures were easy, such as replacing standard light bulbs with compact fluorescents and using soap dispensers instead of bars of soap. Other adaptations were more expensive and challenging, such as installing systems to collect solar energy and turn off air conditioners in rooms when guests weren’t present. Read more
The proposed $50 million downtown Birmingham entertainment district will have two hotels rather than one, according to architectural plans unveiled today.
Fred Keith, president of Birmingham’s HKW Associates, told board members of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex that a second 130- to 150-room hotel will be built as part of the project. It will be adjacent to the Southeastern Conference headquarters building at Richard Arrington Boulevard and 22nd Street. Read more
Larkspur Hospitality Development and Management Company, LLC, an affiliate of Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants, announced today that a Starwood Capital Group Global, LLC controlled affiliate has acquired its 11 Larkspur Landing extended stay hotels. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The hotels consist of 1,279 guest rooms and stretch from California’s Silicon Valley through the Pacific Northwest. Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants will manage all 11 hotels, which also will continue to operate under the Larkspur Landing brand. Read more
With millions of Americans heading out on their summer vacations, PETA has been combing the country to find the best accommodations available for travelers who include their four-legged family members in their plans. The good news is that more national chains and independent hotels are welcoming companion animals than ever before, and PETA ranks Best Western, Loews, the Choice family of hotels, Starwood’s W Hotels, and Wyndham Worldwide’s affiliates as the top five most animal-friendly hotels in the nation. Read more
FOR much of its history, the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan was not considered particularly upscale. Nor was it a prime tourist destination. But like many areas of the city, Chelsea has experienced rapid change — starting with an influx of high-end art galleries in the mid-1990s and continuing today with quick growth of luxury condominiums.
Now, in the midst of New York’s hot hotel market, developers are betting that Chelsea is ready to become a lodging destination for both tourists and business travelers.
According to data from Smith Travel Research in Hendersonville, Tenn., a provider of information to the hotel industry, upward of 2,000 hotel rooms are under construction or in the planning stages in Chelsea, with the more upscale hotels clustering closer to West 23rd Street and midlevel brands opening on the north end of the neighborhood, near 34th Street. Read more
Lodging real estate investment trust Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. said Monday it completed the sale of six hotels to affiliates of DLJ Real Estate Partners for $150.5 million.
The properties include Hilton Garden Inn in Lake Oswego, Ore., a Courtyard and Residence Inn in Oxnard, Calif., a Courtyard in Riverside, Calif. and a Residence Inn and Hawthorn Suites in Sacramento, Calif.
Proceeds will be used to repay a revolving credit facility and for general corporate purposes.
“This transaction will allow management to concentrate its efforts on a core group of large assets, which will more directly impact cash flows,” Sunstone Chief Executive Steve Goldman said in a statement. Read more
Fifth Avenue shopping sprees. Plush bathrobes. Backstage passes to “The Lion King.” When it comes to staying at the country’s top hotels, kids today have as many luxe options as their parents.
Famous hotels—like the Homestead in Hot Springs, Va., the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and the Kahala Hotel & Resort in Honolulu—as well as luxury chains like Four Seasons and Peninsula, are catering to families with young children, who are traveling together more than in the past, both to resort destinations and major cities. Read more
The pioneering San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group, which worked its way eastward, is looking west again — this time to Hell’s Kitchen.
An originator of the boutique hotel concept, Kimpton manages two hotels in Manhattan: 70 Park Avenue and the Muse, at 130 West 46th Street. Next spring, it will open a new $125 million hotel with 222 guest rooms at 653 11th Avenue, entering an area of the Far West Side of Manhattan that is distant from any existing hotels.
Converting a 1930’s printing plant on the west side of the avenue between 47th Street and 48th Streets and adding three floors, Kimpton will create the Vu, called that because of its 360-degree unobstructed vistas of the Hudson River and New Jersey, facing west, and the Midtown Manhattan skyline, facing east. Read more
Innkeeper Elaine Crane defends the kindly spirit in a white nightgown that sometimes greets guests of Crane’s historic Painesville establishment.
“She’s friendly,” insisted Crane. Mistress Suzanne is more Casper than poltergeist.
She isn’t mean like the ghosts who terrify lodgers in the thriller “1408,” which checked into theaters Friday. The movie, based on a Stephen King story, is about the haunted hotel room in which jaded horror writer and ghost debunker Mike Enslin spends one horrific night. Read more
Mobile in-room work pods, personal robotic butlers, voice-activated smart rooms where curtains are opened and lights turned down on command, air-permeable windows where fresh outdoor air is filtered through a smart window, a room that can morph into different configurations and environments at the touch of a button and virtual video conferencing so you can enjoy dinner with family and friends in other locations from the comfort of your hotel room
Welcome to your room at tomorrow’s inn, at least that’s what those involved in the Hotel of Tomorrow (HOT) project, a US-based group of experts envisioning the future of hotels, say.
An industry-spanning initiative put together by Hospitality Design magazine and Gettys, a Chicago-based design firm, HOT participants says that future hotels “will be multifunctional and intelligent, combining imagination with efficiency”, and that future guests will be able to create the type of room they want according to their wants and needs on the day. Read more
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. plans to eliminate artificial trans fatty acids from foods and beverages at its hotels in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean by the end of 2007, the White Plains-based company announced today. Its 400-plus hotels include the Sheraton, Four Points by Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien and W brands. Read more
Travelocity has extended its longstanding distribution agreement with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), the world’s largest hotel company by number of rooms. As a certified online third party intermediary for IHG’s more than 3,700 hotels worldwide, Travelocity customers will have continued access to InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites brands when shopping for the perfect hotel choice. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The agreement also gives customers of Travelocity Business and Travelocity’s IgoUgo division access to such IHG content.
“We’re pleased to strengthen an already strong relationship with IHG,” said Ross Mantione, vice president partner marketing for Travelocity. “With access to more content, the renewal of our strategic agreement will result in more marketing of IHG properties and brands on Travelocity. This will also help us to continue to grow our presence in Europe and Asia-Pacific with our lastminute.com and ZUJI brands, respectively.” Read more
When researching hotels and the hotel industry itself, location is just as important as it is in other types of real estate. Pick up a map of Arizona if you’re looking into resorts in that desert state. A map can be a useful tool in any researching any hotel or resort.
Newcomers to Dallas’ hotel scene are hot, according to Condé Nast Traveler.
The hip and swanky W Dallas Victory and Hotel Palomar were among 138 new hotels around the world named to magazine’s 2007 Hot List for their style, location, service and value.
Located in the Victory development near downtown, Starwood’s W Dallas Victory opened last June, boasting the ultra-hip Ghostbar, Bliss Spa and Craft Restaurant. Read more
Lodgian, Inc. announced the sale of 16 hotels to Atlanta-based Kronos Hotels & Resorts for a price of $64.9 million. The buyer has signed an agreement to purchase one additional hotel later this year.
The company announced its plan to dispose of 20 of the 27 non-core hotels in November 2006 and all of them have been sold. Out of the remaining seven, four are at present under contract and the balance three are being marketed actively. Read more
Hotel operator Marriott International Inc. said Thursday that it has inked a partnership with boutique-hotel pioneer Ian Schrager to create a new brand of up to 100 “lifestyle” hotels.
The venture will attempt to combine the individualized service of Schrager’s boutique hotels with Marriott’s (MAR) operational and global scale.
Schrager, originally known for running the infamous disco and nightclub Studio 54, has become a hotel mogul, developing trendy lodging destinations in New York, London, Miami and other cities. He’s also been involved in residential and mixed-use developments.
Marriott has a market capitalization of about $17.8 billion and operates such staid brands as Renaissance Hotels, Residence Inn, Courtyard by Marriott and TownePlace Suites. It also operates the high-end Ritz-Carlton hotels. Read more
They have certainly gone far in distance; we recently encountered the boutique concept in Asia.
While on a consulting project in Thailand we visited several small hotels that, our opinion, combine all the best boutique characteristics.
We were most impressed with the elegant and intimate atmosphere these properties display without any of the trendiness we have seen in some U.S. self-named boutique hotels. We do not intend any criticism of American boutique hotels; we have seen some truly excellent examples. In fact we have recently worked with an architectural firm to design a 73-room property for a client. Read more
Embassy Suites Hotels have announced the new launch of its popular “Snap Happy” family vacation photo contest with a “Happiness in Motion” theme, encouraging participants to capture the family travel journey – both physical and emotional – on film. From planning and packing, to activities and discoveries and all the way through to the arrival back home, Embassy Suites wants to see it – in pictures.
Throughout the summer, Embassy Suites Hotels are encouraging families to enter the contest by submitting their favorite summer 2007 photos online to the Snap Happy site where kids and families can also find downloadable travel games, fun travel music and ‘virtual’ photo postcards to send to families and friends around the world. Read more
The Hampton hotel brand opened 15 new hotels across the country in May, including a 71-room hotel in Woodland.
The Woodland Hampton Inn & Suites is right off Interstate 5 in the Yolo County seat. The hotel is about 15 miles from the wildly popular Cache Creek Casino Resort in the rural Capay Valley.
All of the new Hampton hotels are franchised newly constructed hotels. Read more
Who doesn’t love a memorable meal? Especially when on vacation! And while Mexico Boutique Hotels’ entire collection of one-of-a-kind accommodations offers food and drink as exceptional as the venues they are served in, the following epicurean possibilities will be of particular appeal to ardent gastronomes and connoisseurs of the good life.
Celebrating the art, culture and taste of the Mexican table, the luxuriously intimate 16th century Casa de Sierra Nevada in San Miguel de Allende hosts the Sazon school of Cooking. You can opt to immerse yourself or merely dabble in all things gastronomic — taking trips to local mercados (markets) laden with produce from Mexico’s fertile heartland, indulging in wine tastings and gourmet dinners featuring regional cuisine, and learning the tricks of the trade from local and visiting chefs who share fabulous heirloom recipes. Among the names long synonymous with Mexican cuisine are prolific cookbook authors Diana Kennedy and Patricia Quintana. Read more
In the same week that Paris Hilton hits the headlines with the start of her jail sentence, the Hilton group has announced a major new development, which will see 55 new hotels built by 2012.
The cost of the project will be $1.7 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, with hotels planned in Russia, Britain and Central America.
Eleven major Russian cities will see the 25 new hotels planned for the country, including Moscow and St Petersburg. Read more
Nickelodeon has joined forces with hotel group Marriott to create 20 themed hotels carrying the Viacom children’s channel’s brand.
In what is believed to be a first for children’s television, the Nickelodeon branded hotels will be built in 20 destinations around the world, including the UK, the Caribbean, Australia and the Middle East.
The first is expected to be built in San Diego, America and will open before 2010.
The hotels, called Nickelodeon Resorts by Marriott, will be branded on the outside and will cater for families with features including children’s activity areas.
A special feature of each resort will be state-of-the-art pools and water features, plus live entertainment programs featuring popular costumed Nickelodeon characters like Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants. Read more
