property improvement plan
Ensuring Your Deal Closes: Three Areas to Focus On
Eric Guerrero | October 31, 2024
Both buyers and sellers want a seamless hotel transaction closing, but a variety of potential pitfalls can slow a deal’s closing. Below, we review three key areas of a hotel sale that may present obstacles: financing, PIP costs, and property insurance premiums. We also provide recommendations that help you to anticipate and prevent issues. Financing Securing debt at a reasonable market rate with good terms is still one of largest obstacles in closing a deal. In order to obtain a good loan, a buyer must have a strong balance sheet with a credible global cash-flow and solid track record of success in owning and operating other hotels. Bu...
You Received a Hotel Property Improvement Plan. Now What?
Cicero Construction Group | September 6, 2024
In order to keep a hotel aligned with current brand standards, hotel franchisors will periodically issue hotel owners a Property Improvement Plan outlining required renovations and upgrades. PIPs are mandatory. If the hotel owner does not complete the PIP, the franchisor has the right to remove them from the brand entirely. PIPs differ for every brand and hotel. Newer hotels might simply require small cosmetic adjustments, but older ones may need complete overhauls to their mechanical and electrical systems. However, hoteliers should generally anticipate a PIP every seven to twelve years. Design components that are fundame...
Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Keeping Hotels Open During Renovation
Cicero Construction | April 29, 2024
While renovations ensure a hotel continues to be a popular destination, it's no secret that renovations can be disruptive for guests. Confronted with this dilemma, a hotel owner is left with the question: “Should we stay open during the renovation or should we close?” The correct answer depends on several factors. Pro: Closing Your Hotel On one side of the ledger, closing the hotel makes good sense. It allows for a far broader scope with work done in less time. Total re-branding of the hotel, a large-scale PIP, or a major build out can be completed on a fast track schedule without concern for subjecting guests to noise or other dis...
What to Expect in the Hospitality Industry in 2024
Mark D. Podgainy | March 4, 2024
By Mark D. Podgainy The hospitality industry experienced a modest increase in RevPAR in 2023, and the industry seems to be optimistic about the future. What’s ahead for 2024? Uncertainty is the major theme. What’s Ahead • Interest rates will be higher for longer. Expectations of a number of rapid cuts to the Federal Funds rate early this year have been dashed with the latest inflation data. Most economists still expect reductions in the Federal Funds rate but have pushed back the time frame for the first reduction to late spring and have reduced their forecasts for the number of reductions. If inflation remains stubbornly high,...
Renovation Trends: Stylish, Custom & Connected
George Rendell | October 3, 2023
Keeping 2023 property improvement (plan) projects on target requires creative procurement, realistic scheduling, and wherever possible, going local By George Rendell After working in the hotel industry for more than 40 years and in design and construction for the past 22 years, I’ve learned to expect the vagaries of every hotel renovation project. But the industry has moved into a new, even more challenging era when it comes to renovation. Higher guest expectations, elevated brand requirements, labor issues and supply-chain challenges have changed the way we budget and undertake every new project. Brand proliferation alone demands...
Ashford Hospitality Trust Converting Crowne Plaza La Concha Hotel to Marriott’s Autograph Collection
August 22, 2023
DALLAS, Aug. 22, 2023 -- Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE: AHT) ("Ashford Trust" or the "Company") today announced that its Crowne Plaza La Concha Hotel in Key West, Florida (the "Hotel") is on track to convert to a Marriott Autograph Collection® property in 2024 at which time it will be rebranded to Autograph La Concha. Marriott's Autograph Collection Hotels feature a diverse portfolio of approximately 200 independent hotels around the world that reflect a unique vision, design, and environment. The conversion of this iconic Key West hotel to an Autograph Collection property will occur upon the completion of a $35 million r...
Tourism Tidbits: Attracting Visitors With Beautification Efforts
Dr. Peter Tarlow | July 14, 2022
By Dr. Peter Tarlow There is perhaps nothing more disappointing than entering a city or location for the first time and seeing garbage-filled streets, urban sprawl, and a lack of greenery. The physical appearance of a community impacts not only the way that both the local population and its visitors see the community and its image but also a community’s ability to market itself. Additionally, well-groomed locales tend to be not only safer locales but promote a physically healthier population. In this post-pandemic world where so many communities have suffered from the plague of Covid, beautification is an essential part of a locale...
Until the PIPs Squeak
Thomas Magnuson | March 3, 2022
By Thomas Magnuson We can trace brand standards and the standardisation of hotel rooms back to the 1950s upon the introduction of the interstate freeway system across the US. It was post World War Two and President Dwight Eisenhower decided to completely network the US to create jobs and spur commerce. With this system came an increase in travel and the impetus for the birth of standardisations and chains. At the same time, Kemmons Wilson (the founder of Holiday Inn) was visiting Florida on a road trip with his family. After staying at several motels of uneven quality, Kemmons realized that somebody needed to create a way for travellers...
