Brandt Hospitality Group Getting Great Results From Accounting Software Partner
Aptech | June 5th, 2024
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Why Prioritizing Employee Development Has the Best ROI for Owners Too
David Lund | March 27th, 2023
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Top 10 Hotel Budget Review Tips
David Lund | August 19, 2019
By David Lund When you are reviewing a hotel budget you want to ask the right questions—the ones that will yield the biggest treasure. You see, the game of budgets in most hotel companies where the corporate or regional master needs to approve the plan before it is presented to the owner, is a game of under promise now and hopefully over deliver next year. Some people I know call this the practice of sandbagging. It is not mean or deceitful, rather it is a game. If you are asleep at the switch when you are doing the review, well, that is your problem. Operators are always looking for items they can keep in their back pocket for the...
Sonnenblick-Eichner Company Arranges $46,000,000 of First Mortgage Financing for Maison Dupuy, New Orleans, Louisiana
Sonnenblick-Eichner Company | August 13, 2019
Beverly Hills, CA (August 13, 2019) -- Sonnenblick-Eichner Company announced today that it has arranged $46,000,000 of interim first mortgage financing for the Maison Dupuy, a five-story, 200-room, full-service, boutique hotel located in the world-famous French Quarter of downtown New Orleans, LA. Proceeds from the five-year non-recourse LIBOR-based loan will be utilized to pay off the existing indebtedness and provide funds for the renovation of the property. The Hotel is excellently located just two blocks off of Bourbon Street at the corner of Toulouse Street and Burgundy Street. The French Quarter is the center of New Orleans’ hospit...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Subsidizing Your Company, Association Meeting Costs / David Lund
David Lund | August 5, 2019
By David Lund In my recent travels working with clients and delivering keynotes as well as financial leadership workshops for management teams and hotel associations, I noticed an interesting way that more than one client used to “subsidize” their meetings—reducing their costs—and I wanted to share it with you. Having your regional meeting, national meeting or hosting your association event is expensive. There are travel costs, perhaps speaker fees and venue costs. Depending on the type of event there can be accommodations, meals, audiovisual and meeting room rentals. For companies, there is also lost productivity cost associate...
Hyatt Reports Second-Quarter 2019 Results; Net Income Increased 10.6% to $86 Million
Hyatt Hotels Corporation | August 1, 2019
Strong transient demand drove 1.3% system-wide RevPAR growth, and fees and net rooms grew at a double-digit pace inclusive of the Two Roads Hospitality LLC acquisition. Second quarter of 2019 financial highlights as compared to the second quarter of 2018 are as follows: Net income increased 10.6% to $86 million. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 2.1% to $213 million, a decrease of 1.0% in constant currency. Comparable system-wide RevPAR increased 1.3%, including an increase of 2.3% at comparable owned and leased hotels. Excluding the negative impact from the timing of the Easter holiday, comparable RevPAR at system-wide hotels and compar...
Creating a Financially Engaged Team: What to Avoid
David Lund | July 29, 2019
By David Lund Creating a financially engaged leadership team takes time, commitment, respect for fair play, resources and a sense of adventure. When creating something new, for me there was always an element of the unknown. In writing my book, it occurred to me that if I had a book like this 25 years ago, some of the guesswork would not have existed. The adventure however always remained and that was the great part about embarking on a mission that had a team working together in an attempt to score big. But, I was cognizant that when working with people, I was the example that got watched, yes, everything I did was watched. It was cl...
What Is “Hospitality Financial Leadership Anyway?”
David Lund | July 1, 2019
By David Lund This is a question I have been asked many times. Exactly what is financial leadership and why hospitality? Finding the three words together “HFL” in a sentence three years ago was not possible. I know because I tried to google them and came up with a bunch of leadership consultants and courses. Even the words “financial leadership” revealed surprisingly little. Some tidbits about CEO’s and their role but nothing any broader. Financial leadership is in my opinion the cornerstone of any manager, executive or leader’s business acumen. It enables the individual to see the importance of being plugged into the strate...
Rainmaker VP to Participate in Panel Discussion at HSMAI ROC
Rainmaker | June 13, 2019
ALPHARETTA, GA. — June 13, 2019 — The Rainmaker Group today announced that Dan Skodol, the company’s vice president of revenue analytics, will participate in a panel discussion at HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Conference, which will be held June 18-19 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, MN. The company is a Platinum Sponsor of the event. Skodol will take part in the panel discussion entitled, “Think Differently About Revenue: Building a Better Room Merchandising Plan.” In this session, a group of industry professionals will discuss potential benefits of dynamically yielding at a granular, room type level. They ...
IDeaS Celebrates 30 Years of Innovation, Revenue Transformation and Global Momentum at HITEC 2019
IDeaS | June 13, 2019
Following a wave of unprecedented growth and major client wins, IDeaS continues worldwide, multi-vertical expansion plans Tweet This: @IDeaS_RevOpt is turning the big 3-0 and never felt better. Join us at HITEC and ROC on our home turf of Minneapolis—we have a lot to celebrate. www.ideas.com/news #RevenueScience #30YearsYoung MINNEAPOLIS—June 13, 2019—HITEC Booth #1415 (Minneapolis Convention Center)—IDeaS Revenue Solutions, the world’s leading provider of automated revenue management software and services, will showcase its cutting-edge revenue science technology products at the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition ...
ProfitSword and WVC RubixCloud Partner to Provide Hotels With Comprehensive and Seamless Business Intelligence and Financial Accounting Platform
ProfitSword, LLC | June 12, 2019
In-depth integration provides both single properties and entire hotel portfolios with ability to ensure full data integrity between accounting and business intelligence systems. ORLANDO, Fla. – (June 12, 2019) – ProfitSword, a leading provider of Business Intelligence solutions for the hospitality industry and WVC RubixCloud (WVCRC) providing best-in-class technology and accounting services, have partnered to create a comprehensive data management and accounting solution that provides key financial and operational benefits for the hospitality industry. The integrated solution is designed to allow a single hotel or an entire portfo...
What Is TRevPAR (Definition and Why It Matters)?
David Eisen | June 10, 2019
By David Eisen In a previous blog post, I took aim at RevPAR. My pursuit: to puncture the long-held notion that it’s the most exemplary data point to consult within the hospitality industry. And, according to one comment, I succeeded in doing so (thank you, Don Weintraub, you made my mother very proud). My thesis was not that RevPAR is obsolete; following it is still necessary, especially since RevPAR tracks revenue derived from the rooms department, the largest source of revenue for a hotel. It’s akin to tracking cap rates when investing in hotels—one data point but not the end-all. RevPAR (a combination of rate and occupancy) is...
TraknProtect Selected to Present Location-Based Employee Security Platform During Entrepreneur 20X (E20X) Competition at HITEC 2019
TraknProtect | June 10, 2019
The pioneer of employee safety button technology chosen to participate in annual startup competition and showcase at the launch of HITEC Minneapolis 2019 Minneapolis – HITEC Booth #3017 – June 10, 2019 – TraknProtect, a leading provider of real-time location technology purpose-built for the hospitality environment, has been selected by HFTP (Hospitality Technology Financial Professionals) to present its award-winning solution during the Entrepreneur 20X (E20X) competition at this year’s HITEC Minneapolis on June 17, 2019. During E20X, selected companies prepare and deliver four-minute presentations which are then judged by a panel...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Conducting Financial Operations Reviews
David Lund | June 10, 2019
By David Lund Hands down one of the best experiences I ever had in my career was being part of the team that reviewed the financial performance of the hotels in my region. The reason I enjoyed it so much, and have such great memories, is because I learned so much at each one and not only did I learn about the business of hotels, I had a lesson in people. The review team consisted of my boss, the hotel GM, the hotel Controller and me. In addition to the four of us, one by one the other executives or department heads would be in attendance or be called when it was their turn to review their area. The examination was a low-tech event. No P...
MSD Partners Closes Sale of 1,047-Room Boca Raton Resort & Club From Blackstone Group for $461.6 Million
MGM Resorts International | June 10, 2019
Jeff Ostrowski | The Palm Beach Post, Fla. June 07--In the biggest property sale in Palm Beach County history, the Boca Raton Resort & Club sold this week for $461.6 million, according to deeds made public Thursday. A company affiliated with billionaire Michael Dell announced in April that it would buy the iconic club from Blackstone Group, but the buyer and seller didn't disclose the price at the time. Dell's MSD Partners is the new owner of the 1,047-room hotel. Dell himself visited the hotel several times from 2000 to 2004, when the Boca Resort hosted annual meetings of The Business Council, an organization made up of the heads of th...
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust to Sell LA’s 132-Room Hotel Amarano Burbank for $72.9M
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust | June 3, 2019
BETHESDA, Md.-- 6/3/2019 -- Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE: PEB) (the "Company") today announced that it executed a contract to sell the 132-room Hotel Amarano Burbank in Los Angeles, California for approximately $72.9 million to a third party. The contracted sale price reflects a 15.8x EBITDA multiple and a 5.7% net operating income capitalization rate (after an assumed annual capital reserve of 4.0% of total hotel revenues) based on the hotel's operating performance for 2018. Based on the trailing 12-month period ended March 2019, the contracted sales price reflects a 16.9x EBITDA multiple and a 5.3% net operating income capitalization ra...
RevPAR Is Only One Piece of the Picture
David Eisen | May 17, 2019
By David Eisen Imagine you're scouting a young baseball player or footballer—someone experts have pegged as the next Derek Jeter or Lionel Messi. You can't, however, just take their word for it; you have to see their performance for yourself and also dig into the numbers—into how they rate statistically. Now, imagine you are only allowed to consult one statistic, such as batting average (hits divided by at-bats) or goals scored. Then, imagine that within this context, our Jeter heir apparent is hitting a more-than-respectable .315, and our Messi-to-be is his team's leading goal scorer. Great news, right? Well, yes and no. ...
Sam Moon Group Begins Construction of Hyatt House in North Houston’s Metropark Square
Sam Moon Group | May 17, 2019
DALLAS – May 17, 2019 – Sam Moon Group announces the commencement of construction for a Hyatt House extended stay hotel at the Metropark Square mixed-use development in Shenandoah, Texas. The 5-story, 148-room hotel is slated to open in November 2020. The hotel developer is Sam Moon Group; contractor is VCC and architect is Type Six. The senior lender for the project is Veritex Community Bank and Bedrock Group raised EB-5 Funds for the construction of the Hyatt House Metropark Shenandoah/The Woodlands. "We are excited for the closing of financing and to begin construction with our partners VCC on Hyatt House Metropark Shenan...
How to Add Value to Your Hotel Asset
Carrie Russell | May 16, 2019
By Carrie Russell At the most basic level, the value of a hotel is based on the property's net income divided by a capitalization rate. As such, one has two possible levers to adjust as a means of increasing a property's value: either increase the property's net income or decrease the capitalization rate. The capitalization rate, which is a factor that represents both the risk and the desired return associated with a given asset, is in actuality difficult to influence. Firstly, returns are market driven, which means that the capitalization rate is determined by market forces, not the will of owners. Secondly, it is the buyer's perceptio...
RevUp Revenue Management Consulting
May 16, 2019
RevUp Revenue Management Consulting in conjunction of RLS Revenue Consulting is a innovative hospitality and revenue management consulting firm, providing professional services to hotel and resort owners. Focused on adding value to owner's investments and transforming underperforming assets into greater success. RevUP Revenue Management offers a complete list of consulting services and we tailor our packages property-specific. Our experienced group provides an unbiased analysis of asset performance; including in-depth financial review and budget planning. We focus on revenue enhancement, improving market share and re-positioning the...
How Modular Construction Is Changing Commercial Real Estate
JLL Real Views | May 15, 2019
Regions across the U.S. faced their snowiest, coldest and warmest February in history this year, with volatile weather disrupting the flow of life across the country. That included construction projects. Yet there was one setting where the unpredictable winter didn't slow down work — the vast indoor spaces where firms have increasingly been creating homes, offices and hotels. The method of modular construction — where pieces of buildings are manufactured in one place, and then delivered to construction sites for assembly — has boomed in recent years. The business in the U.S. has doubled in size to US$8 billion over the...
Hard Rock International Partners With ASG for €200 Million New Hotel in Barcelona
Hard Rock International | May 15, 2019
May 15, 2019 – Hard Rock International continues growing its European hotel portfolio, announcing the development of Hard Rock Hotel Barcelona. The brand is set to bring its signature musical flair to the shores of Barcelona in a €200 million new hotel to be developed on the last available seaside plot in metropolitan Barcelona. Construction of the 504-room hotel will begin in late 2019, set to open on the shores of Barcelona in early 2022. "This is set to be another ambitious project for Hard Rock International, alongside ASG," comments Todd Hricko, senior vice president and head of global hotel development at Hard Rock Inte...
Sonnenblick-Eichner Company Arranges $21,000,000 of First Mortgage Leasehold Financing for Palihotel Seattle, Washington
Sonnenblick-Eichner Company | May 14, 2019
Beverly Hills, CA (May 14, 2019) – Sonnenblick-Eichner Company announced today that it has arranged $21 million of non-recourse first mortgage leasehold financing, on behalf of a partnership between Los Angeles based Lighthouse Investments, LLC and KCB Management, for the 96-room Palihotel Seattle. Operated by Palisociety, the hotel is located across the street from the world-famous Pike Street Market in downtown Seattle, WA. The newly renovated hotel opened in November of 2018 and the initial funding was sized to a debt yield less than 6% on the first year's projected net operating income. The five-year interim loan also provided...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Engage Their Hearts and Minds First
David Lund | May 13, 2019
By David Lund Getting your hotel leadership team excited about accounting is like someone thinking it's fun to go to the dentist. Your average person wants nothing to do with it because they have a predisposed notion that it's yucky, boring and better left for someone who has a hard time walking and talking at the same time. What I have learned about getting your average hotel leader excited about the numbers is just the opposite. Let me explain. Hotel leaders ALL want to have the "financial where-with-all" to dazzle their peers. They know it's the secret sauce to propel their career. They all want their seat at the captain's table. Bei...
JMBM’s Global Hospitality Chairman Jim Butler Will Speak About Hotel Investment at 2019 Institutional Real Estate Forum
May 13, 2019
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com LOS ANGELES—Jim Butler, Chairman of JMBM's Global Hospitality Group®, along with Jack Westergom of Manhattan Hospitality Advisors, will speak at the 4th Annual West Institutional Real Estate Investor Forum on June 5, 2019 in San Francisco on the topic of hotel investment. They will also conduct a roundtable discussion for investors who may be new to the hotel investment. "Many institutional investors, family offices and other sophisticated real estate investors are looking to hotels to increase investment returns. While hotel investments can of...
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Partners With Wellworth Properties to Develop Wyndham Garden Hotel in Quezon City
May 13, 2019
QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES (May 13, 2019) – Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, the world's largest hotel franchising company with approximately 9,200 properties worldwide, is bringing a fresh approach to hospitality in the Philippines with the launch of the country's first Wyndham Garden hotel in Quezon City. The new-construction Wyndham Garden Quezon City, located directly opposite the ABS-CBN communications and broadcasting center in the heart of Quezon City, Metro Manila, is expected to start welcoming guests in 2021. Upon opening, this modern 25-story hotel will feature 235 sleek and stylish rooms and suites, plus an extensive selection of ...
