Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Pandox acquires Brussels Hilton

Pandox's strengthens its position as a leading player with six hotels and total of 1,750 rooms in Brussels, one of Europe's most dynamic hotel markets. Brussels Hilton is one of Brussel's largest and best-known hotels. The hotel property is located at Boulevard Waterloojust a few steps fromthe prestigious shopping street Avenue Louise. The hotel, which is a landmark, comprises 432 rooms on 26 floors with several conference floors, two restaurants, fitness and spa center. The acquisition totals EUR 29 million, which includes the hotel building and the operations. The seller is a US investment company.

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Monday, September 6, 2010

Minnesota county considers anti-porn bill for employee hotel stays

A Minnesota county tomorrow will consider passing a bill that would ban county employees from selecting hotels with porn on their pay-per-view TV systems.

Concerned about sexual and domestic violence, Winona County commissioners will consider a so-called "clean hotel" policy, the Winona Daily News reports. It's not clear how county employees would figure out whether or not the hotel they're thinking about booking offers porn.

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Sunday, September 5, 2010

Last 500 visitors

Drop in hotel Occupancy hurts USA Today

USA Today has always been coy about what percentage of that circulation comes from hotel distribution, but it may have been as much as half. Its deal with Marriott and other chains has changed. As any traveler can observe, the paper-outside-your-door pattern is far from universal anymore. At many hotels you now find a stack of USA Todays in the lobby or dining room, often as not next to a stack of Wall Street Journals.

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Union Properties in talks to finish two Dubai hotels

Union Properties is in negotiations with contractors for the completion of two hotels at its MotorCity development in Dubai.

The Renaissance Dubai MotorCity and the Marriott Courtyard, which are about 75 per cent finished, have been at a standstill while the developer raised cash to complete construction.

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Unpaid sales taxes add up for Tulsa Hilton

About $193 million is owed in sales taxes to the Oklahoma Tax Commission by 9,045 businesses and individuals dating to the 1980s, according to a Tulsa World analysis of active tax warrants.

Tulsa has 1,471 active tax warrants for sales tax totaling about $32 million, of which the city would receive about $11 million, according to the analysis.

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2 Top Executives leave Wynn Las Vegas

Steve Wynn's night-life operations were rocked last week after two of his top lieutenants, Victor Drai and Cy Waits, left his Las Vegas resort company.

Wynn's split from Drai may have been expensive, but both men say it wasn't ugly. Wynn bought Drai out of his management role running Vegas clubs Tryst and XS for about $20 million, sources estimate.

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Arizona Hilton to be auctioned off

The Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort and its adjacent golf club are scheduled to be sold to the highest bidder at a foreclosure auction in November.

The 584-suite resort and its golf club, the Pointe Golf Club on Lookout Mountain, received a notice of trustee's sale from lender Bank of America on Aug. 23.

The compound financial pressure from a difficult tourism year and plummeting real-estate value forced several resorts into bankruptcy or foreclosure, including the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park; the former Mondrian Scottsdale Hotel in Scottsdale (reopened in May as Hotel Theodore); the Arizona Golf Resort in Mesa, and the Club at Seven Canyons in Sedona.

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Hotel made of shipping containers in London

LONDON: An eight-storey hotel is being built from 86 modified shipping container-like structures, stacked on top of each other and bolted together.


When complete in June, rooms at the new Travelodge in Uxbridge, west London, will cost £19 a night.

The chain said it may build up to half of its future hotels in this way.

The purpose-built containers are shipped from China with the bathrooms, plasterboard walls and electrical points already fitted.
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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Hotel Signs

Hilton Pittsburgh in forclosure

The other shoe has dropped for the owner of the former Hilton Pittsburgh.

BlackRock Financial Management Inc. has begun a foreclosure action against Shubh Hotels Pittsburgh LLC, one day after the prominent Downtown hotel lost the Hilton name.

The New York-based lender filed the complaint Friday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court against Shubh and CEO Atul Bisaria.

As part of the action, BlackRock is asking the court to order the sale of the hotel. It also is seeking a judgment for $49.6 million, plus interest, the amount of the mortgage to Shubh.

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Sunstone’s Deal for Big San Diego Hotel Scuttled

All isn’t sunny in San Diego. Developer Doug “Papa Doug” Manchester’s deal to sell the Manchester Grand Hyatt convention center hotel in San Diego to Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. is off.

“It happened again,” Papa Doug’s attorney, Michael Levinson, declared in an email sent recently to the San Diego Unified Port District, which owns the land under the Grand Hyatt. “Sunstone made material changes to terms overnight, and we informed them this a.m. that (the) deal is off.”

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Hotel revenue from phone calls, in-room movies drying up

The nation's hotel industry, already struggling to pull out of its worst slump in decades, is now suffering from another loss in revenue because of the booming popularity of cellphones and laptop computers.

In the past, hotel operators could expect to collect extra money by charging guests for in-room phone calls and on-demand movies.

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LaSalle Acquires Three Hotels for $292.5M

LaSalle Hotel Properties has completed the acquisition of two hotels in Philadelphia and one in San Francisco, while selling off an asset in New Jersey.

The Bethesda, MD-based hospitality REIT acquired the 294-room Westin Philadelphia and the 288-room Embassy Suites Philadelphia-Center City from HEI Hotels & Resorts (HEI) for a total of $224 million. HEI will continue to operate the hotels on behalf of LaSalle.

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Friday, September 3, 2010

No smoking

So here is a normal washroom. Above the urinal is a no smoking sign, but what you may not be able to see is that underneath the no smoking label its written out in Braille.

Now I would think that any blind person using this facility would have a hard enough time hitting the target, let a lone searching to see if there is a no smoking sign.









picture from http://www.hertha.com/