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
PNK Group Investments Begins Construction on Cambria Hotel Los Angeles - Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles
January 29, 2019
Upscale Hotel Brand Expands in Historic Core District with Adaptive Reuse Project ROCKVILLE, Md., Jan. 28, 2019 - Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) is excited to announce that PNK Group Investments has begun construction on the Cambria Hotel Los Angeles – Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Slated to open in 2020, the 13-story, 180-room hotel is the adaptive reuse of a Historic Core District building built in 1927 that was once the office for the Los Angeles Police Department Vice Squad. Located at 419 S. Spring Street, the hotel will be situated along Gallery Row, one of the city's top arts attractions, and wit...
Choice Hotels Appoints Douglas Lisi as Vice President of Revenue Management
Choice Hotels International, | January 29, 2019
ROCKVILLE, Md. (Jan. 29, 2019) – Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH), one of the world's largest hotel franchisors, announced Douglas Lisi has joined the company as vice president of revenue management. In this role, Lisi will lead the company's revenue management organization and functions, including trend analysis, forecasting, and price optimization, to help Choice franchisees maximize gross room revenue (GRR), manage their inventory, and increase profitability. In addition to managing Choice's proprietary revenue management tools, including SmartRates, he will also focus on growing the company's corporate and group b...
Knighthead Funding, LLC Originates $36 Million Loan to Refinance Newly Constructed Luxury Hotel at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta
Knighthead Funding | January 28, 2019
Greenwich, CT (January 28, 2019) – Knighthead Funding, LLC has provided a U.S. subsidiary of Switzerland-based private real estate investment firm ACRON with $36 million in short-term first mortgage debt to refinance a newly constructed luxury destination hotel at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The financing is secured by the Kimpton Overland Hotel, formerly Solis Two Porsche Drive, a full-service, 214-key hotel with 9,500 square feet of meeting space, a high-end restaurant, rooftop and lobby lounges, indoor pool, and fitness center. Proceeds from the three-year, fixed rate loan will be used to take out the ...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Earned and Unearned Revenues – Understanding the Difference
David Lund | January 28, 2019
By David Lund Just like baseball has an unearned run as a scoring feature, in business we have unearned revenues. In this piece I will discuss the difference between earned and unearned revenue and how it applies to the hospitality business. First off though we need to review the American classic game of Baseball and how an unearned run works. This will be especially important for those of us who are not the sport's most avid fans. In baseball you score an unearned run when an official, the umpire, decides the player crossed home plate due to an error (mistake) by the defending team. A good example is: an outfielder drops the ball and t...
Paramount Lodging Advisors Sells Bakersfield, CA Four Points by Sheraton Hotel
Paramount Lodging Advisors | January 25, 2019
Paramount Lodging Advisors (PLA) has successfully executed the transaction of the 198-room Four Points by Sheraton Bakersfield, California. The property is located at 5101 California Avenue, Bakersfield CA 93309. Senior Managing Director Scott Griemsmann and Senior Associate Subu Thiagarajan represented the seller in the sale. This transaction presented the buyer a unique opportunity to acquire a core-branded Marriott hotel at a fraction of replacement cost in a market with significant growth prospects. The hotel is situated on ~7.7 acres of prime commercial land in Central Bakersfield which also offers the buyer the potential for futur...
Rainmaker Selects OTA Insight As Strategic Partner for Rate Intelligence
OTA Insight | January 24, 2019
Top hospitality technology platforms join forces to offer market-leading rate intelligence solution LONDON and ALPHARETTA, GA – Jan. 24 2019 – OTA Insight, the cloud-based data intelligence platform for the hospitality industry, and The Rainmaker Group, a leading provider of cloud-based hospitality revenue and profit optimization software, today announced a new strategic partnership. Rainmaker's decision to partner with OTA Insight was made in order to empower their customers with the industry's leading rate shopping and market intelligence provider, Rate Insight. Through this partnership, OTA Insight will offer Rainmaker's ...
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Reveals the 7th Annual Pebby Award Nominations
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust | January 22, 2019
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--January 22, 2019-- Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE: PEB) (the "Company") today announced the nominations for its Seventh Annual Pebby Awards. The Pebby Award nominees were chosen for their outstanding accomplishments in 2018, as determined by the Company. The Academy's nominations are notably diverse and naturally more competitive given the large increase in candidates. Nonetheless, several hotels earned multiple nominations; Hotel Zeppelin San Francisco and Hotel Zelos San Francisco both earned six nominations, Hotel Zetta San Francisco earned five, and Union Station Hotel Nashville, Autograph Collection and LaPlaya Na...
Many Hotel Sellers Won Big in 2018
Rodney G. Clough | January 21, 2019
By Rodney G. Clough On average, hotel prices increased significantly in 2018, as a strong pool of buyers with favorable outlooks kept downward pressure on cap rates. A strong bidding environment for hotels, particularly those in markets where barriers to entry were high and PIPs had already been completed, kept prices strong, resulting in some big wins for hotel sellers that purchased their hotels at the right time during the last downturn. We queried our database for hotels that were sold between $10 million and $20 million during 2018, and then we compared their prior sales price to the most recent one. For those hotels that were sold...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Bring Multi-Tasking to an End for Hotel Leaders
David Lund | January 21, 2019
By David Lund I am going to begin this piece with a quote because I know there is BIG TIME pushback on the idea of multi-tasking. Being so popular in our modern work society the idea of multi-tasking is more than a fad, more than say IMU (Individual Business Units) or MBWA (Management By Walking Around). These are two of my personal all-time favorite business practices. In the hotel business, we need to be able to differentiate between when it is appropriate to do more than one thing at a time and when it is not. Here is a great quote. "Studies show that the human mind can only truly multitask when it comes to highly automatic behaviors...
Hotel Cap Rates Hold Steady - Values Under Pressure
Suzanne R. Mellen | January 17, 2019
By Suzanne R. Mellen Following a year of robust transaction activity, hotel capitalization rates remain stable, while hotel NOI and values are under pressure due to slowing RevPAR growth and increasing operating expenses. This article looks at hotel sales and capitalization rate trends, the impact of slowing RevPAR growth on hotel values, and the outlook for 2019. [1] With a more business-friendly administration in place and the passage of the Tax Cut and Job Act (TCJA) in December 2017, the outlook for the economy and hotel performance became brighter in 2018. Hotels generate higher returns than other commercial real estate and reflect...
Rainmaker Closes a Record Year With an Increased Global Footprint, New Customer Growth, and Innovation in New Segments
Rainmaker | January 17, 2019
ALPHARETTA, GA – January 17, 2019 - The Rainmaker Group (Rainmaker), a leading provider of cloud-based hospitality revenue and profit optimization software, today announced that the company is starting 2019 with strong-than-ever numbers, a full implementation pipeline, and continued growth in new regions. "We saw a lot of growth in 2018," explained Mike Cowles, CEO of Rainmaker. "We added many new countries to our global footprint and continued to innovate and make our mark on the all-inclusive market. We have a great team, a strong roadmap, and an amazing group of customers behind us. We're excited to see our continued success i...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Understanding the Importance and Use of The Reserve for Capital Replacement
David Lund | January 14, 2019
By David Lund The concept for the use of the reserve account is important to understand. It is also essential that hotel operators ensure the reserve is properly funded per the terms of the Hotel Management Agreement "HMA." The use of the reserve is an important tool to utilize to protect the operator's rights and long-term viability. Many people mistakenly think the reserve account is the owner's responsibility and therefore it's up to the owner to determine and ultimately control the funding. But not so fast, the manager has a right and a duty to ensure the proper transactions are performed on a timely basis using the clauses that are...
Spirides Arranges $8.7 Million Hotel Development Loan for New Holiday Inn in Downtown Columbia, SC
Spirides Hospitality Finance Company | January 9, 2019
TAMPA, FL—Spirides Hospitality Finance Company has successfully arranged, and its client has closed an $8.7 million building conversion and term, first priority conventional loan from a Southeast U.S. headquartered bank to finance the development of a new Holiday Inn in Downtown Columbia, South Carolina. This new 90 guest room, 10-story, full-service Holiday Inn is being developed by converting an existing 1950s era office building into a unique, first class hotel. The building is located at 1233 Washington Street in the heart of Downtown Columbia, Richland County, SC. Hotel amenities will include the Holiday Inn Gen 4 design package, in...
Paid, Owned and Earned Media: What Matters Most for B2B Travel and Hotel Tech Brands in 2019?
Alan Young | January 8, 2019
By Alan E. Young In a marketing landscape where content is king, you might think it's just a matter of creating and distributing great content. After all, if great content is what every consumer craves from the brands they favor, delivering it should be the easy part — right? But in fact, that's not the case at all. While content is undeniably an integral piece of any modern marketing strategy, business leaders are quick to realize that the curation of valuable and timely content is only half the battle. Back in the day, big brands had to buy an ad or film a TV commercial to get their product in front of their target market. In to...
Kahala Hotel & Resort Upgrades Financial Accounting to Aptech PVNG
Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. | January 8, 2019
Hawaiian Luxury Destination Taps Aptech for New Back Office System, Custom Financials for its Unique Operation PITTSBURGH, January 8, 2019 – Aptech Computer Systems announced that Kahala Hotel & Resort installed PVNG Enterprise Accounting to upgrade its back office financial processes. The Kahala Hotel & Resort is a respected luxury oceanfront destination known for its gracious Hawaiian hospitality and elegant amenities. Browser-based PVNG simplifies accounting operations and safeguards data in the cloud. Aptech is the leading provider of hospitality business intelligence, budgeting and forecasting, and enterprise hotel ac...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: The Matching Principle
David Lund | January 7, 2019
By David Lund I tell my Introductory Hospitality Financial Leadership Workshop participants that the concept behind the matching principle is "the most important concept today." Why? When it comes to producing financial information, it's the cornerstone of understanding why we do almost everything the way we do it in the business world. The profit and loss statement cannot exist and be in any way accurate without using the matching principle every step of the way. Grasp this and you are well on your way to understanding the other principles and most importantly putting these principles to work in your day-to-day hotel leadership role. S...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: The Top 10 Interview Questions About The Hotel’s Finances for a General Manager and the Best Answers
David Lund | January 2, 2019
By David Lund Interviews are tricky, for both the candidate and the interviewer. A GM's job interview is a challenge for the incumbent because they need to be ready for just about anything. This is especially true as it relates to the financial picture of the business as seen through the interviewer's eyes. The opposite is also true as many times the person doing the grilling does not have a broad base of experience relating to the daily inner workings and nuances of the hotel world. Here is a list of common questions and good answers as well as a few bonus questions you can ask the person doing your audition. 1. What makes you qualifie...
Spirides Arranges $5 Million Hotel Construction Loan for New Radisson in Florence, SC
Spirides Hospitality Finance Company | December 3, 2018
TAMPA, FL—Spirides Hospitality Finance Company has successfully arranged, and its client has closed a $5 million construction to permanent first priority mortgage loan from a southeast U.S. headquartered bank to finance the development of a new Radisson Park Inn in Florence, South Carolina. This soon to be built Radisson Park Inn will be a limited-service hotel featuring 60 guest rooms and suites in a 3-story interior corridor building situated on 1.5 acres of land. Hotel features will include a breakfast area, business center, indoor swimming pool, fitness center, guest laundry, meeting room, market, and vending area. The hotel will be ...
Market Snapshot: Asia Pacific 2018
Jeremy Teo | November 8, 2018
By Jeremy Teo , Ho Mei Leng , Hok Yean CHEE Transactions in Asia Pacific Transaction activity has been observed to be on a downward trend from 2013 until 2017, owing to the transactions of Dalian Wanda China portfolio to R&F Properties. Since then, the frequency of transactions have been high, with 228 recorded transactions from 4Q2017 to 3Q2018, slightly lower than the 251 recorded the previous four quarters. Geographically, the pick up in transaction activity can be attributed to the North Asia and South-East Asia markets, while Australia markets witnessed a slowdown. Reasons for the increase in transaction activity could plau...
U.S. News & World Report – Best Law Firms® Recognizes JMBM as 2019 “Best Law Firm”
JMBM | November 8, 2018
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 08 November 2018 A hotel lawyer brings together numerous legal disciplines, depending on the hospitality project. That's why the Global Hospitality Group® is part of a full-service law firm. My partners at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP (JMBM) provide first-rate services to our hospitality clients and I am pleased that their efforts were recognized today in U.S. News & World Report's list of Best Law Firms. – Jim U.S. News & World – Best Law Firms® Recognizes JMBM as 2019 "Best Law Firm" Jeffer Mangel...
Lafrance Hospitality Selected to Manage New Tru by Hilton in Manchester, NH Currently Under Construction
Lafrance Hospitality | November 6, 2018
November 7, 2018 – Peter Flotz and Kent Gregory of Bedford Lot Venture, LLC have appointed Lafrance Hospitality to manage the Tru by Hilton under construction in Downtown Manchester, NH. Peter Flotz and Kent Gregory have been working diligently on getting the Millyard area site approved since 2016 for a new Tru by Hilton and have received the go ahead for the project. Both Lafrance Hospitality and Bedford Lot Venture, LLC are looking forward to this new opportunity and partnership. "We are pleased to be appointed the manager for the Tru by Hilton under construction in Manchester. This brand and location will have a lot of synergy ...
Training, Maintaining & Elevating Top Hotel Revenue Management Talent
Paul Van Meerendonk | November 6, 2018
By Paul Van Meerendonk Remember that whiz kid in reservations? He had grown up with computers and seemed able to fly around the property management system with natural ease and skill. Sure, his job was just to answer calls and make reservations, but he had a knack for finding cool reports buried deep in the system. Not only that, but he had also somehow mastered Excel and was able to create dazzling charts that seemed to bring the numbers to life. We knew we had to nurture his raw talent, so we signed him up for some revenue management 101. He would become our savior, finally getting our pricing in shape and enhancing our top-line reven...
Knighthead Funding Originates $8.5 Million Loan to Complete Construction of Holiday Inn & Suites Near Savannah, GA
Knighthead Funding | November 6, 2018
Greenwich, CT (November 6, 2018) -- Knighthead Funding, LLC has funded an $8.5 million construction loan for the completion of a 104-room Holiday Inn & Suites in the Savannah submarket of Pooler, GA. The sponsor, a Georgia-based hotel development and management company whose portfolio currently includes flags such as Hilton, Marriott and Holiday Inn had funded the entire development with all equity prior to Knighthead's involvement. Due to liquidity constraints, the Sponsor needed a creative source of capital to get comfortable in funding a project that was approximately 50% completed. The Greenwich, CT-based lender was able to reco...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Why OTA’s Are Uber Successful
David Lund | November 5, 2018
By David Lund Have you ever wondered why we all hear so much complaining and downright all-around annoyance being expressed from hotels about the on-line travel agents? You would naturally think that because there is so much protest being made that hotels would simply not use the service and opt for something else? Right? Well – not so fast as hotels are reportedly using OTA's more than ever. There are three key reasons why OTA's are so successful and, in turn, why hotels and customers all flock to use them. One. Hotels, brands and franchisers all benefit from using OTA's and they do so without making a single dollar of investment...
