Winter storm pushes Texas occupancy to 50-week high: Texans displaced by freezing temperatures and outages pushed the state’s occupancy to a 50-week high, according to an analysis by STR. During the week of February 14-20, Texas hotel occupancy reached 56.3%. That 50-week high in the metric contributed 0.9 percentage points of the 3-point gain in overall U.S. occupancy (48.1%) for the week. Texas’ occupancy level grew 9.4 percentage points over the previous week, which is the largest week-over-week occupancy increase for the state in the last year. ADR rose 5.8% week over week, which was Texas’ largest gain in the metric since the week of New Year’s.
Accor grow Orient Express: Accor’s Orient Express brand is headed to Rome as it will take over the historic Grand Hotel de la Minerve in 2023 after a 20-month renovation. Italian property investor Arsenale Spa has signed a preliminary agreement to acquire the 132-room hotel from the Billi family for an undisclosed price. The repurposed mansion from the 1600s and features a rooftop garden overlooking the Pantheon and numerous statues by Rinaldo Rinaldi. The hotel will continue to be operated by the Billi family and will reopen as under the Orient Express brand after the renovation is complete. Arsenale Spa said the deal forms part of its development strategy of “enhancing premium Italian assets in the luxury sector and working alongside the biggest international brands to create new hospitality destinations.” Accor currently plans to open five Orient Express hotels in London, Paris, Rome, Milan and Florence.
Four Seasons, Omnam plan resort in southern Italy: Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and global real estate firm Omnam Group are partnering on a brand-new resort in Puglia in southern Italy. The 150-room Four Seasons property will include six restaurant and bar offerings, including an all-day restaurant, a specialty restaurant, a seasonal pool bar and grill, a lobby lounge bar, a signature bar and a beach club. Exteriors are being designed by HKS Architects, which has previously worked with Four Seasons on projects in the Bahamas, Tunis, and Egypt, while interior design is being led by ODA Architecture.
U.S. Travel touts bill to help save industry: The U.S. Travel Association praised the introduction on February 25 of one of its major legislative priorities: a bill providing assistance to the devastated travel industry through numerous key incentive and relief measures. The Hospitality and Commerce Job Recovery Act provides stimulus needed to help bring back the millions of travel jobs lost to the pandemic. Specifically, the bill provides:
• A temporary business tax credit to revitalize business meetings, conferences, and other structured events
• A temporarily restored entertainment business expense deduction to help entertainment venues and performing arts centers recover
• An individual tax credit to stimulate non-business travel
• Tax relief for restaurants and food and beverage companies to help restore food service jobs and strengthen the entire American food supply chain
Airbnb bookings rebound: Airbnb reported better-than-expected gross bookings on Thursday in its first quarterly earnings report since going public, indicating a strong rebound in demand for vacation rentals in North America as COVID-19 pandemic curbs ease. Leisure travelers in the company’s biggest market stepped out to nearby locations that could be accessed by a car and are within 50 miles, lifting daily booking rates up by 13%, Airbnb said. Even though the health crisis initially forced it to cut jobs, the U.S. vacation rental firm outperformed hotel operators who rely more on business travel, throughout 2020, thanks to its large share of ‘sun, ski, and suburban’ rental homes.
RLJ Lodging Trust’s Q4: Bethesda, Maryland-based RLJ Lodging Trust reported Q4 adjusted EBITDA of US$12.8 million, ahead of analyst expectations. Analysts from Baird Equity Research have a positive view of RLJ’s 4Q20 earnings, but, “our unchanged near-term outlook reflects heightened expectations as shares (and the sector broadly) have benefited significantly from the reopening and reflation trade momentum.” Highlights include:
• Total revenues: minus 73.4%, with RevPAR growth minus 72.2%, which compares to minus 75.8% last quarter
• Adjusted funds from operations (FFO)/share: (US$0.28)
• Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA): US$12.8 million
• Hotel earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA): US$7.3 million
AHLA to put money behind diversity: The American Hotel & Lodging Foundation has announced a new US$5 million, multi-year commitment and action plan to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the hotel and lodging industry. The AHLA Foundation’s board of trustees voted unanimously at its October meeting to elevate diversity as a cornerstone platform under the direction of a newly created task force, comprised of senior leaders throughout the industry. Since then, the Task Force has been meeting to develop a five-year road map. So far, the task force identified the following guiding principles for the new initiative:
• Diversifying representation at all levels to better serve our guests, associates, and communities
• Elevating inclusive leadership across corporate entities, properties, franchisees, and supplier networks
• Driving accountability and transparency to achieve measurable diverse, equitable, and inclusive results
• Fostering innovative approaches to scale diversity within the industry
U.S. lodging market update: The Lodging Market Overview by Horwath HTL Atlanta showed the South Atlantic region hit a 42.7% occupancy in January, the highest amongst all measured regions, which is lifted by a strong contribution from the transient and group segments relative to peer regions. Likely, this is a result of the usual seasonality and travelers further escaping frigid weather from the northern states.
Galaxy to open eight in Macau: Hong Kong-based Galaxy Entertainment Group is planning to spread an estimated 3,000 new hotel rooms across eight new hotel brands as part of its phase 3 and phase 4 developments at Galaxy Macau. Vice Chairman Francis Lui confirmed the target of 3,000 rooms would primarily be targeted at the premium segment via high-end family rooms and villas. And while a timeline for completion of all new developments remains hard to pinpoint given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Lui did reveal GEG has “eight more new hotels we need to plan,” alongside the Galaxy International Convention Center, an amphitheater, new shopping and casino space, and multiple restaurants.
Renewed optimism for Asia Pacific pipeline: According to analysts at Lodging Econometrics, the Asia Pacific pipeline, excluding China, ended the fourth quarter of 2020 at 1,732 projects/368,820 rooms, down 10% by both projects and rooms year-over-year. However, there is renewed optimism by economists that as the region’s economies emerge from the current downturn, so will hotel development. Even as the region struggled in 2020, it opened a total of 352 new hotels/69,563 rooms for the year. Q4 ’20 saw the most openings of any quarter of 2020 with 106 hotels/19,147 rooms. LE is forecasting another 321 projects/72,602 rooms to open in 2021 and 375 projects/65,579 rooms to open in 2022.
Virtual chat, feminine design: Washington DC’s Hotel Zena, will host a virtual fireside chat with Andrea Sheehan, principle of Dawson Design Associates and creative director behind the hotel, which has architecture designed to “send a message of female empowerment and to inspire conversations on inclusivity and equality.” The virtual chat is part of the hotel’s month-long series of in-person and virtual activations launching March 1 in celebration of Women’s History Month. Registration is open to the public.
Tripadvisor’s dashboard for tourism recovery: Tripadvisor has launched a live data intelligence dashboard available to destination marketing organizations, powered by tourism sentiment Index. This offering is part of Tripadvisor’s suite of data intelligence products for destination marketing organizations, known as the Tripadvisor Insights Platform. The live dashboard provides clients with word-of-mouth insights about destinations, combining reach and traveler behavior insights with the tourism sentiment index’s industry sentiment technology.
Virgin Las Vegas re-opens with no resort fees: The reimagined and re-conceptualized casino resort, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, will re-open to Las Vegas on March 25. The hotel will remove resort fees and guests will also be able to enjoy complimentary self-parking and Wi-Fi at no charge, which will be available throughout the resort and in the over 1,500 rooms.