Amazon alternative: Room Mate Hotels is the first boutique hotel chain in Spain to launch Amazon Pay on its website for all its hotels. Moving forward, the Madrid-based hotel chain will offer Amazon Pay at check out in order to improve user experience.
Meet Zip: Premier Inn’s owner, Whitbread, is launching a hotel chain with small pod-style rooms as the company seeks to refocus its business after the sale of its cafe chain Costa Coffee to Coca-Cola. Zip by Premier Inn’s new hotels will be located on the outskirts of major towns and cities. Rooms will cost from £19 (US$24) a night and be less than half the size of a standard Premier Inn room. Premier Inn prices typically start at £49 (US$64) while its more upmarket brand, Hub, starts at £69 ($90) per night. The first Zip, with 138 rooms, will open in the Roath district of Cardiff early next year. Whitbread has secured a second site in Southampton, with 140 rooms.
Los Angeles property sells to HEI: Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills has been sold for an undisclosed price to HEI Hotels and Resorts, according to a Valley Vantage report. In 2014, Laurus Corp., a Century City real estate investment and development company, bought the hotel for a rumored US$100 million from Teachers Retirement Fund of Illinois, which had acquired the hotel for US$85.3 million in 2003. In recent years, the 478-room hotel, located at 21850 Oxnard St. in Woodland Hills, went through an extensive renovation.
More from the San Fernando Valley Business Journal
BW upscale Vietnam: Best Western Hotels & Resorts signed an upscale hotel overlooking Ha Long Bay, the Unesco World Heritage site in Vietnam. Developed by Doji Land Real Estate Investment Company Limited, the Best Western Premier Sapphire Ha Long will be a new 31-story project that is currently rising in Ha Long City’s hotel district. It will have more than 1,000 guestrooms and panoramic views of the bay. The hotel is scheduled to open its doors in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Sarova Hotels Chairman dead: MS Vohra has died in a road crash on Nairobi-Mombasa highway in Makueni at the weekend along with his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law. The Toyota Landcruiser that the family members were traveling in towards Nairobi veered off the road and landed in a ditch. Nairobi-based Sarova Hotels Group operates hotels, lodges, and resorts in Kenya.
2nd Red in Georgia: Radisson Hospitality AB has signed the second Radisson Red in Georgia. The new Radisson RED Tbilisi Old Town, Georgia, is set to open its doors in late 2020. The 100-room property will have the signature Ouibar + Ktchn F&B outlets as well as an inner courtyard bar and restaurant.
Mixed result for U.S.: The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year performance results during Q3 2018, according to data from STR.
Compared with Q3 2017:
Occupancy: -0.4% to 71.0%
ADR: +2.1% to US$131.86
RevPAR: +1.7% to US$93.65
Demand (room nights sold) grew 1.6% year over year, while supply (room nights available) increased 2.0% for the third-consecutive quarter.