The Hotel Price Index - Jan-Jun 2009

The hotels.com® Hotel Price Index (HPI) is a regular survey of hotel prices in major city destinations across the world. The HPI is based on bookings made on hotels.com.
• The HPI tracks the real prices paid per room by hotels.com customers around the world using a weighted average based on the number of rooms sold in each of the markets that hotels.com operates in.
• Approximately 78,000 properties in more than 13,000 locations make up the sample set of hotels from which prices are taken.
• The prices shown are those actually paid by customers (rather than advertised rates), in the first six months of 2009 and therefore give an accurate reflection of hotel prices for the period.
The international scale of hotels.com (in terms of both customers and destinations) makes the Hotel Price Index one of the most comprehensive benchmarks available, as it incorporates both chain and independent hotels, as well as specialty lodging options such as vacation rentals and bed and breakfast properties.
In the U.S. approximately 70 percent of hotel rooms booked are in chain properties. The reverse is true of Europe, where approximately 25 percent of hotel rooms are part of a chain, the remainder being independent. In addition to the standard survey, the HPI includes occasional features on new or unusual booking and pricing trends.

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Cracker Barrel Reports 9% Increase in Fourth Quarter EPS

LEBANON, Tenn., Sep 15, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBRL):
- Fourth-quarter diluted EPS from continuing operations of $0.99, an increase of 8.8% compared with the prior-year quarter
- Revenue for the fourth quarter declined 1.0% to $595.6 million compared with the prior-year quarter
- Operating income margin in the fourth quarter was 7.0% of total revenue compared with 6.9% in the prior-year quarter
- Net cash flow from operating activities increased $39.7 million to $164.2 million in fiscal 2009
- Closed sale/leaseback transactions and paid down $133.0 million of long-term debt in the fourth quarter

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Vail Resorts Names Paul G. Toner Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of RockResorts and Vail Resorts Hospitality

Vail Resorts, Inc. (NYSE:MTN) announced that Paul G. Toner has been promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of RockResorts and Vail Resorts Hospitality.
Toner will oversee and direct the Company's lodging and hospitality division which currently encompasses approximately 3,800 owned and managed hotel and condominium rooms, including the RockResorts collection of casually elegant resort hotels and spas, six independently flagged and Company-owned hotels, Grand Teton Lodge Company in Grand Teton National Park, Colorado Mountain Express transportation company and six Company-owned resort golf courses. Toner's new position is effective immediately and he will report directly to Vail Resorts Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rob Katz in the Company's corporate headquarters in Broomfield, Colo.

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Tour operators seeing signs of recovery

Tour operators spent the first half of the year desperately waiting for the phones to ring. And then, in a possible early indicator of recovery, the late-booking calls started coming in.
"Mid-June, we saw the last-minute booking pattern come virtually out of nowhere," said Paul Wiseman, president of Trafalgar Tours. "Things started to accelerate for late-summer travel for Europe as well as domestic for the U.S.

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Permira checks out of Travelodge with £1bn sale

Permira, the private equity group, is putting the budget hotel group Travelodge up for sale with a price tag of around £1bn as it looks for a timely exit from its three-year investment.
Last week Permira held a beauty parade of potential advisers to arrange a sale or flotation of the business. A sale is thought to be the most likely scenario, easily the "cleanest exit" for a private-equity business, and also because the budget hotel chain is expected to attract a lot of bid interest. A float, which carries more risk, is seen as the least likely option. A management buyout is seen as a possibility.

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Baha Mar Resorts to build multi-billion US dollar resort in Bahamas

The resort is expected to be the Caribbean’s largest single-phase destination resort and will feature hotels from St Regis, W, Westin and Sheraton.

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Senate passes Travel Promotion Act

The Senate on Wednesday passed the Travel Promotion Act in a 79-19 vote. The measure is designed to promote the U.S. as a travel destination to people in other countries and communicate information about U.S. security and entry procedures.

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Wyndham Drake Hotel to close in October

(Crain’s) — The Wyndham Drake Hotel is scheduled to close next month after an opportunistic investor gained control of the 160-room property, which has lost its luster in recent years but was once one of the suburbs' best-known hotels.

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Jamaican Resort Sues Marriott's Ritz Unit

Ritz-Carlton Hotels, a unit of Marriott International of Bethesda, was sued by the owner of a luxury resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica, that claims the company mismanaged the property and should pay $145 million in damages.

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Court orders banks to freeze Hilton accounts

The Hilton Pittsburgh is facing more financial woes after attorneys for a union health and welfare fund garnished the bank accounts of the hotel's owner and its top officer in an effort to collect a $1 million debt.

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Financial controller of The Stafford hotel jailed for stealing £350,000

The financial controller of The Stafford hotel in Mayfair has been jailed for two years after stealing more than £350,000 from his employer as his gambling debts spiralled out of control.

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Wynn Resorts to raise up to $1 bln in HK IPO on Oct 9

HONG KONG, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Las Vegas casino operator Wynn Resorts (WYNN.O) plans to raise up to $1 billion by listing its Macau assets on the Hong Kong stock exchange, two sources with direct knowledge of the deal said on Friday

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The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited Assumes Full Ownership of The Peninsula Chicago

Following the completion of the agreement in Chicago, HSH Chicago, Inc. now assumes full ownership control of The Peninsula Chicago. HSH has opted to pay for the US$11.7 million purchase price in full with surplus cash.

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Detroit MGM taken off market

Detroit --The city's largest casino is no longer being shopped to buyers.
MGM Grand Detroit's chief executive told The Detroit News that while a number of interested buyers had been "kicking the tires" at the casino earlier this year, activity from interested parties has waned.
"While every casino in America is for sale for the right price, we haven't had any buyers actively courting us for a while," Lorenzo Creighton, chief executive of the MGM Grand Detroit, said Wednesday

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PwC expects higher hotel cccupancy, on discounts

Hotel occupancy will likely gain strength in late 2009 and 2010, but profit will remain elusive as hotels continue to use heavily discounted rates to draw in more travelers, according to a revised U.S. lodging forecast from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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