Aman pleads its case: Aman Resorts is requesting that two involuntary Florida bankruptcies filed by former owner Omar Amanat in the long-running dispute be transferred to New York, arguing that the courts there are more familiar with the dispute.
Read more about the case in Law 360
Aloft in San Juan: Prisa Group developers gave the flag of its lifestyle hotel at the US$125 million Convention Center District development in Miramar to Aloft Hotels, which will be making its Caribbean debut. The 175-room hotel is expected to open the second half of 2019.
Report on Japan: Japan’s three largest markets for hotel bookings by international visitors are Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, collectively attracting just over 70% of the hotel reservations, and leisure visitors to Japan pay an average of US$196 per night compared with US$189 per night for business visitors, according to a new report by California-based travel data company Adara.
South America, Asia Pac up: Hotels in Central and South America reported positive results during July compared with the same month in 2016, according to STR: Occupancy rose 3.2% to 58.1%, ADR rose 0.2% to US$97.86 and RevPAR grew 3.5% to US$56.83. Asia Pacific hotels reported a 3.8% increase in occupancy to 74.4%, ADR up 1.9% to US$97.67 and RevPAR up 5.7% to US$72.66.
Deutsche and WeChat: Frankfurt-based Deutsche Hospitality opened a account with mobile communications platform WeChat to better communicate with its customers in China. More than 900 million smartphone owners in the country use the app. The company, whose China Selection Program tailors services to Chinese travelers, says it is focusing more on Chinese outbound travel.
Scandic’s Restel purchase: The Finnish Competition Authority is studying the proposed acquisition of Restel’s hotel operations in Finland by Scandic Hotel Group. Scandic says the company is still on track to complete the sale by year-end 2017 and that it is continuing its “constructive dialogue” with the authorities to make that deadline.
Wyndham to Crowne Plaza in Cleveland: The Wyndham flag is being removed from a Cleveland theater district hotel and being replaced by Crowne Plaza. The changeover of brand will be completed next month. It had been a Wyndham for the past 20 years.
Read more in Crain’s Cleveland Business
Invisible apps? A survey by L 2 of hotel-branded apps shows that most of them are invisible in the Apple App Store and a majority fail to deploy incremental updates or optimize their presence in the store, missing an opportunity to optimize the investment with guests.
Ranch sale: Aris Hospitality of Phoenix, Arizona, purchased the Lazy K 7 Ranch outside of Reserve, New Mexico. The seller and purchase price of the working ranch, with space for guests, were not named.