The U.S. Free Trade Agreement between Peru and the United States will encourage investment into the South American country and, says Chief Economist of the BBVA Banking Group Jose Luis Escriváthe, investment will not be slowed by the sub-prime mortgage crisis. With direct connection to Lima from Atlanta, Houston, Miami and New York, there is also substantial airlift to increase incoming tourism. A national chain, Casa Andina, Lima, already has 17 hotels throughout the country and it opens in Arequipa and Lima's Miraflores district this month. Globally branded properties in Lima already include Crowne Plaza, Hilton and Marriott, but there is obviously room for other development.

Building hotels in the air, so to speak, could be a new phase of development. In Washington, D.C., developer John “Chip” Akridge III paid US$10 million to the General Services Administration for 15 acres (6 ha) of air above the tracks outside the city's iconic Union Station. Akridge's planned US$1 billion development will be called Burnham Place, named for Daniel Burnham, the late Chicago-raised architect of the station. Burnham Place will be on a concrete platform, supported by 20-ft. (6-m) columns above the tracks, and a hotel is included in the multi-use plans.

The water also offers increasing potential. We have seen such successful projects as the Hilton in Auckland built cantilevered out over the harbor as if it is a cruise ship. Now, in the fast-expanding leisure development of the European nation of Croatia, authorities are citing the potential of utilizing the country's 4,000 miles (6,437 km) of coastline and over 1,100 islands. Over 15,000 berths, both land and wet, are required by 2017, and these will all need complementing by lodging development, some of which may well be over water. The country could also benefit from golf-related development, as right now there are only two operating courses.

Golf will play a big role in the 2,700-acre (1,090-ha) development planned at Sifah, in the Sultanate of Oman. KAPICO Group Holding Co., a privately owned international corporation headed by CEO and Vice Chairman Pradeep Handa, based in Safat, Kuwait, has more than 40 companies spread across 11 countries. One of these divisions is Jabal Resorts LLC, which is in charge of Sifah development. There will be substantial golf, plus five resorts, two of which will be managed by Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts under its Angsana and Banyan Tree brands.

In Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk), the main coastal city of the Central Asian country of Turkmenistan, President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has announced a major tourist resort on the Caspian Sea that will tap into the vast energy resources attracting investment from international gas and oil companies. Berdymukhamedov anticipates that the project will require a US$4 billion investment, which will pay for no less than 60 hotels and resorts as well as considerable stadium and other related projects. International oil and gas companies have been intensifying competition for access to the country's vast energy resources.

The low-cost AirAsia, Kuala Lumpur, is headed by Datuk Tony Fernandes. He is following the lead of his rival, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, based in London, by going into low-rate lodging. His brand, TuneHotels.Com, is backed by private equity fund Tune Hospitality Investment, Dubai. Although Fernandes originally said he first wanted a no-frills hotel in every major city and resort destination in Malaysia by the year 2010, and then he would think about international expansion, he already has acquired two parcels of land on Bali. He now also says he wants Tune hotels in the Indonesian cities of Jakarta, Yogjakarta and Bandung, and the Thai cities of Phuket, Bangkok and Koh Samui, in the near term.

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