- Quake Flattens 3 Haiti Hotels
- Caribbean Hoteliers Look for Upturn by Year End
- Carlson Plans to Triple Portfolio in India
- Edinburgh, Scotland Market Tops UK Hotels in RevPAR
- First Wyndham Brand Hotel in The Netherlands Opens in Amsterdam
- Historic Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC in Trouble
- Canadian Development Plans are Down for Upper Upscale Lodging
(PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI) -- Three of Haiti's 43 hotels, averaging 42 rooms per property, lie in rubble today, the result of the 7.0 earthquake that struck the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere Jan. 12.
Collapsed are Karibe Hotel, Christopher Hotel and Hotel Montana, all in Port-au-Prince.
The island country has a total 1,807 rooms but the physical condition of many of the properties is still being evaluated, according to Smith Travel Research.
"I don't know what section of town has been hit the most," noted Caribbean musician and hotelier Richard A. Morse told HotelNewsNow.com. "It's all bad. If you've been hit, you're suffering."
Richard A. Morse
"For the moment, Hotel Oloffson seems to be OK," Morse says. "Coffee and Coca-Cola and water are more popular than rum punches right now."
HotelNewsNow.com reports Morse has become a citizen journalist, using Twitter on his computer to communicate with fellow Haitians and the world. He uses the @RAMhaiti account and has about 6,000 followers so far.
(SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO) -- Despite the devastating living conditions in earthquake-hit Haiti, the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association sees the beginning of a rainbow appearing over the lodging industry by the end of 2010.
The trade group plans its annual investment conference in May at the 503-room Sheraton Puerto Rico Convention Center Hotel & Casino, the first new full-service hotel and casino built in San Juan in a decade.
"We're all looking forward rather than backward," Willie Chin, the hotel's director of sales and marketing, tells HotelsNewsNow.com.
Carlos Baruki, sales and marketing director for InterContinental Hotels Group, is equally confident of the industry's future growth in the Caribbean.
"People go to the Caribbean for work and fun," Baruki says.
(MUMBAI, INDIA) -- Carlson Hotels Worldwide is betting India will become one of its dominant growth destinations over the next three years.
The Minneapolis, MN-based company says it will be adding 50 properties by the end of 2012 across four brands - Radisson Hotels & Resorts, Country Inns & Suites, Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts and Park Inn.
This growth strengthens Carlson's position as the largest and fastest-growing international hotel operator in India by number of hotels, says Carlson president and CEO Hubert Joly.
"We are optimistic about India and its growth prospects as a leading emerging economy," Joly told a recent Hotel Investment Forum India. "To be the number one international hotel operator here is particularly pleasing."
Chart below shows Carlson's presence and growth in India entail all of its brands:
*The Regent Gurgaon is scheduled to open in 2013.
(LONDON, ENGLAND) -- The recent freeze across the United Kingdom helped a few hoteliers but dampened performance at other sites, according to STR Global.
Edinburgh was the only regional city to show RevPAR growth.
Daily data from the research group showed the adverse weather and road conditions reduced people's desire to travel locally. Guests were forced either to cancel their plans to travel or to stay in hotels as airports were closed.
Elizabeth Randall
Data for the U.K. for the first working week of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009 showed marginal declines in all three performance measures: occupancy, average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR).
Hotels in regional U.K. performed worse, even though the results for the U.K. as a whole were buoyed by the improved performance at two airport destinations (Heathrow and Gatwick) as well as London and Edinburgh.
U.K. Weekly Hotel Performance (% change year-on-year)
Jan. 3 to Jan. 9, 2010 vs. Jan. 4 to Jan. 10, 2009
Source: STR Global
(AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS) -- Wyndham Hotel Group has added the 223-room, 50-year-old Apollo Hotel Amsterdam to its upscale brand, the first inn in The Netherlands to join the Wyndham family.
Eric Danziger
Wyndham Hotel Group calls itself the world's largest hotel company with more than 7,000 hotels and 11 brands.
The Wyndham Apollo Hotel Amsterdam, the flagship of Apollo Hotels & Resorts, overlooks the only point in Amsterdam where five canals converge. The Apollo is near the RAI Trade and Congress Center, the World Trade Center Amsterdam, Royal Concert Hall and the city's museums, shopping districts and night life of Leidseplein.
The Wyndham Hotel Group portfolio in Europe now includes 232 hotels that span the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Days Inn, Howard Johnson, Ramada, Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham and Wyndham-affiliated Corinthia brands.
The Wyndham Apollo Amsterdam Hotel joins the brand's luxury Wyndham Grand London Chelsea Harbour in the United Kingdom and Corinthia hotels in Hungary, Portugal and the Czech Republic.
(WASHINGTON, DC) -- The 10-story, 657-room Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, an internationally known destination, is in trouble. The 85-year-old property at 1127 Connecticut Ave. has a $217 million securitized mortgage that owner Rockwood Capital LLC is trying to restructure.
Fitch Ratings reports the property was transferred to PNC Financial Services Group Inc. for special servicing Nov. 6, 2008 after Rockwood indicated it would no longer be able to cover debt service.
Realpoint LLC, a credit-rating company, says the hotel is not yet in default on the mortgage, but its cash flows aren't enough to cover its $11.5 million in annual mortgage loan payments. The hotel generated a cash flow of $7.6 million in 2008 and $6 million in the first half of 2009.
Historic Hotels of America, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and a Preferred Hotel Group Brand, notes that Immediately after its opening in 1925, the Mayflower Hotel was known as the "Grande Dame of Washington, D.C.,"
The hotel boasted more gold than any other building in the country except for the Library of Congress. Just four blocks from the White House, the hotel remains not only a place to make history but to absorb it.
The Mayflower's 74 suites have hosted every U.S. Presidential inaugural ball since Calvin Coolidge. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the Mayflower as a retreat to work on his 1933 inaugural address.
Harry Truman resided here for the first 90 days of his presidential term. The late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover lunched at the Mayflower nearly every day he was in town.
Celebrities and international royalty have also made the Mayflower their DC home, but the true star of the hotel is the building itself.
Renovation work in the early 1990s led to the discovery of a 25-foot skylight blacked out at the beginning of World War II and two large murals by artist Edward Lanning.
(HENDERSONVILLE, TN) -- Hotel developers in Canada have slowed work on new properties, according to the most recent STR--TWR--Dodge Construction Pipeline Report.
The Canadian hotel development pipeline includes 214 projects comprising 23,384 rooms, a 0.9-percent decrease compared to November 2009 and a 10.8-percent decrease compared to December 2008.
Among the Chain Scale segments, the Unaffiliated segment reported the largest increase in rooms in the total active pipeline, rising 38.4 percent to 8,692 rooms.
The Economy segment also reported an increase in rooms in the total active pipeline, up 25.4 percent to 756 rooms.
The Upper-Upscale segment ended the month with the largest decrease, down 59.7 percent to 1,135 rooms in the total active pipeline, followed by the Midscale-without-Food-and-Beverage segment with a 31.3-percent decrease to 4,382 rooms.
Canadian pipeline by Chain Scale segment (number of rooms & percent change December 2009 vs. December 2008)
*Includes those projects In Construction, Final Planning and Planning phases.
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