Wheelock buys again in Florida: Wheelock Street Capital has acquired The Ben – West Palm Beach, a 208-room Marriott soft-branded hotel, for an undisclosed price. Concord Hospitality will continue to retain management responsibilities under Wheelock’s ownership. Just yesterday, Wheelock, along with The Ronto Group and Timbers Company, acquired the South Seas Island Resort in Captiva, Florida. CBRE Group arranged the sale of The Ben.
All-inclusive remains the rage: Marriott International has announced the addition of 20 All-Inclusive by Marriott Bonvoy resorts as part of the Autograph Collection Hotels brand. The new Autograph Collection All-Inclusive resorts span across Mexico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, and Costa Rica. The announcement follows the recent agreement with Sunwing Travel Group’s hotel division, Blue Diamond Resorts, and according to Marriott moves its all-inclusive collection into the top 10 among global players in the segment.
Triton Hospitality acquires The Marquette Hotel: Triton Hospitality Group, Santa Monica, California, has acquired The Marquette Hotel, a Curio Collection by Hilton, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The boutique investment company has appointed Evolution Hospitality as manager. Triton will invest additional capital on projects including reimagining the hotel’s F&B outlets, the addition of two Topgolf Swing Suites, aesthetic upgrades to Windows on Minnesota, a renewed fitness center and a new energy-efficient HVAC system for the guest rooms. Built in 1970, the hotel underwent a full-scale transformation and rebranding in 2017 as a member of Hilton’s Curio Collection.
SCP expands to California: San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based Soul Community Planet has acquired the 41-room, beachfront Laguna Riviera Beach Resort, marking the brand’s expansion into California, and its sixth hotel overall. The acquisition advances SCP’s plan to expand its footprint into communities which align with SCP’s healthy, kind, green values. It wants to introduce at least 25 SCP locations in the U.S. by the end of 2023. The hotel will maintain the Laguna Riviera Beach Resort name while undergoing the planned multi-million-dollar renovation and repositioning program. Opening rates at the SCP Laguna Beach are expected to start at US$250.
Is all day dining still relevant? Fixing the Three-Meal Outlet, a report by Horwath HTL and EDG Design, analyzes all day dining (ADD) performance figures across key markets in the Asia Pacific region, as well as understands and addresses the dynamic and drives strategic food and beverage decision-making for these restaurants. As per the report, total ADD capture rate struggles to break 70% in most markets. Rates rarely break 100% in hotels with high ADD capture, suggesting that breakfast may not be a critical part of a guest’s stay. Since a very small percentage of guests buy breakfasts, the report found no justification in designing a venue specifically for breakfast. With the right design and strategy, several concepts can be combined into the same dining room to serve high volume breakfast and then separately become independent lunch and dinner venues.
Loan on Times Square land up for sale: A loan worth US$150 million is reportedly available for sale in New York City on the land underneath Times Square Edition, the luxury hotel and retail property that faces foreclosure. The hotel, once valued at around US$2 billion, and the land are owned by different entities controlled by Maefield Development. The land is under debt worth US$900 million, which includes the US$150 million junior loan that is also up for sale. The mezzanine loan, with an interest rate of 5.1%, features in the “fulcrum position” of all debts, which allows the lender to control the real estate if the borrower fails to repay the debt.
US group meetings rise 17.2%:Â Group meetings volume in the U.S. increased 17.2% over August 2021, according to latest data by Knowland. The average attendees per event in September 2021 stood at 112 compared to 70 in September 2019, the highest the metric has been since 2013. The top five growth markets in September were Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Virginia; New York City; Washington D.C.; Phoenix, Arizona, and St. Louis, Missouri. The corporate segment represents 67.8% of meeting and event business with the healthcare and technology segments leading as the largest industry sectors.
New luxury holiday home lettings company: The team which introduced Cotswold boutique hotels has launched Tucked Away, a holiday lettings firm which will offer a collection of luxury holiday homes with high-end amenities and latest home technologies across the Cotswolds in the U.K. Tucked Away’s properties include Parson’s Barn in Stow-on-the-Wold and Cotswold Cottage in Salford. The company was launched by Charlotte and Rich Tuck and Jim Cockwell, the management team behind The Old Stocks Inn in Stow-on-the-Wold.
Crestline to manage Hyatt Place: Crestline Hotels & Resorts, Fairfax, Virginia, has been selected to manage the 130-key Hyatt Place Greenville Downtown in South Carolina. Crestline currently manages 129 hotels, resorts and conference centers with around 18,800 rooms across 29 states and the District of Columbia.
HVMG adds to management portfolio: Hospitality Ventures Management Group, Atlanta, Georgia, has assumed the management of the 174-key DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Atlanta-Roswell. This is the group’s fifth managed hotel in Atlanta within the past 60 days, bringing its Atlanta-based portfolio to 12 and the 10th new hotel transaction since July. The investment plans of RADCO, the hotel’s new owner, include a US$6.25 million (US$36,000 per key) capital improvement plan comprising upgrades and modernization of the rooms, bathrooms, public spaces and technology. Hospitality Ventures Management Group currently operates 52 hotels and a convention center across 17 states totaling to 8,300 rooms.
AAHOA economic impact study: In 2019, AAHOA hotels (hotels in which AAHOA members have an ownership interest or in the case of hotels under corporate ownership, a senior executive role) consisted of more than 34,000 properties with around 3.1 million guest rooms, according to the AAHOA Ownership & Economic Impact study conducted by AAHOA in partnership with Oxford Economics. Guests staying at AAHOA hotels spent US$275.4 billion at hotels and local businesses and on transport, while AAHOA hotels purchased US$50 billion in inputs from other businesses. While member hotels generate direct capital investment worth US$24.2 billion, direct taxes supported by member hotel operations amounted to US$29.7 billion in 2019. The total fiscal impacts of these hotel operations stood at US$53 billion, the study revealed.
Bali airport to allow international flights: Indonesia is likely to reopen the Bali airport for international flights on October 14 after more than a year. The airport will allow international flights as long as it fulfills the requirements for testing and quarantining. International travelers will be mandated to show proof of hotel bookings for a compulsory duration of eight days. The government is reportedly readying some steps, which includes preparing a list of countries that have direct flights to Bali.