World's first no star hotel slashes prices to £5.99 a night

The bargain price buys a room with no windows or television, no central heating, very little hot water, and a compulsory waking time of 7am.
Guests are likely to have to share their room with up to six lorry drivers, hard up travelling salesmen or passing immigrants, and must queue for the hotel's one shower in the morning.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5732914/Worlds-first-no-star-hotel-slashes-prices-to-5.99-a-night.html

Restaurant and hotel insolvencies to soar after summer

The number of insolvencies in the travel, leisure and tourism (TLT) sector has dropped by 50 per cent, although experts warn an increase may come after the summer trading ends.
Advisory firm KPMG has predicted that the ‘unusual’ drop in the average number of TLT insolvencies from 350 a month to 178 is not a sign of an upturn in the economic situation, rather a ‘temporary reprieve in advance of a second wave of insolvencies’.

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http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/item/3625

Travelodge to spend £52m building three hotels in Spain

Budget hotel chain Travelodge has announced plans to spend €61m (£52m) building three new hotels in Spain.
The hotels in Barcelona, Seville and Valencia will all be newly constructed, through a joint venture with property developer Citygrove, which has developed a number of Travelodge hotels in the UK.

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http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/07/03/328538/travelodge-to-spend-52m-building-three-hotels-in-spain.html

BAB, Inc. Reports Profit for 2nd Quarter FY 2009

DEERFIELD, Ill.-- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- BAB, Inc. (OTCBB: BABB), announced its financial results for its second quarter ended May 31, 2009, reporting net income of $111,000, or $0.02 per share, versus net income of $177,000, or $0.02 per share, for the same quarter last year.
For the quarter ended May 31, 2009, BAB had revenues of $797,000 and net income of $111,000, or $0.02 per share, versus revenues of $945,000 and net income of $177,000, or $0.02 per share, for the same quarter last year.

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http://www.smartbrief.com/news/NRA/industryBW-detail.jsp?id=422BC2A0-F44A-4009-A019-41B22AA05D67&sb_code=RSS&i=Specialty%20Eateries

Whitbread to build 10 and purchase 2 new hotels

Whitbread-owned hotel group Premier Inns is to add 12 new hotels to its portfolio.
Planning permission has been granted to build 10 new hotels across the UK and deals to purchase a further two existing properties, one in Islington, London and one in Belfast, have been agreed.
The plans will add 1562 rooms to its estate and create 600 new jobs when the hotels open between 2010 and 2013.

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http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=7&storycode=64358&c=1

Pritzker Snags Blackstone Resort At Fire-Sale Price

Deep discount may raise doubts about other Blackstone treasures.

Jay Pritzker, the late Chicago financier, knew how to drive a bargain. Apparently, so does his son, John.
John A. Pritzker is acquiring the 400-acre Carmel Valley Ranch resort in Carmel, Calif., from a private equity fund managed by Blackstone Group ( BX - news - people ) for a fraction of its previous value, according to people familiar with the transaction.

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http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/02/blackstone-private-equity-personal-finance-jay-pritzker.html?partner=yahootix

Tropicana Las Vegas emerges from bankruptcy

Tropicana Las Vegas has come out on the other side of its bankruptcy woes with a new leader and the bulk of its financial burden gone.
The Toronto-based Onex Corporation and former MGM Mirage President Alex Yemenidjian acquired a majority stake in the Las Vegas property when it emerged from bankruptcy Wednesday.
The new owners took over the property right after midnight this morning from the Tropicana’s former parent company, the Las Vegas-based Tropicana Entertainment LLC, and have promised to return the Tropicana to its “glory.”

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jul/02/yemenidjian-takes-reins-tropicana-las-vegas/

Court Rules in Favor of Taco Bell Franchisees

2009-07-02] The Superior Court of New Jersey granted partial summary judgment in favor of franchisees of Taco Bell Restaurants against Underwriters of Lloyds, which sold Trade Name Restoration, Loss of Business Income, and Incident Response Insurance for Food Borne Illness (TNR) policies to the franchisees. Invoking the policyholders' reasonable expectations and noting that "any exclusion must be clear," Hon. Judge Phillip Lewis Paley, JSC, found that an "aggregate supplier incident sublimit" cannot be used as a stealth exclusion to deny coverage for business income losses stemming from food contamination that was allegedly caused by lettuce that went into some Taco Bell menu items.

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http://www.qsrmagazine.com/articles/news/story.phtml?id=8884&utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication

Is Oliver biting off more than he can chew?

Someone, an otherwise anonymous television producer or director making a film about the River Café restaurant, saw something, a hint of star quality. Bustling in the kitchen was a young sous chef, snapping back at the camera crew, obsessed and fascinated, and if he played a relatively minor role in the real world of Rose Gray’s and Ruth Rogers’ famed Italian eaterie, he was a star of the show when it hit the screen.
Few, then, in the mid-Nineties, could have predicted what the next decade and more would hold for Jamie Oliver. The dyslexic Essex boy born into the catering game at his parents’ pub in Clavering has become a multimillionaire, a one-man multimedia industry, an A-list celebrity, bestselling author, national campaigner and an MBE at 34. He has also become a brand.

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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article6597092.ece

Gordon Ramsay suffers profit nightmare

The TV chef Gordon Ramsay, who admitted recently that ambition almost brought his restaurant empire crashing down, suffered a kitchen nightmare last year as profits at his group fell by almost 90 per cent.
Gordon Ramsay Holdings has filed accounts showing that Mr Ramsay and Chris Hutcheson, his father-in-law and business partner, were forced to inject £5 million into the business to keep it afloat by paying off some of its debt and unpaid tax.

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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article6623219.ece

Hilton makes 100 redundancies at its Watford office

American hotelier Hilton Hotels Corporation has announced that it has made around 100 full-time staff redundant at its international headquarters in Watford. An undisclosed number of contract staff will also lose their jobs.
The job cuts were forecast back in February when it was widely reported that the hotel operator (which was bought out by Blackstone for $26b in October 2007) was planning more than 1,000 job losses worldwide, and announced the closure of its corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, California.

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http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/item/3614

Travel's latest scourge: hidden charges

You check out of a downtown hotel, and your bill contains a "resort fee" of $20 a day for a fitness room you never entered, a pool towel that remained untouched and a coffeemaker you never used. Hidden fees are erupting throughout the lodgings industry, and it's important to stand up and challenge the deceptive practice.I've recently received messages from readers who recount the following outrages:- At the Franklin Hotel in New York, a reader finds a fee of $12 a day on his final bill. He's told, upon inquiring, that it's for Wi-Fi (wireless access to the Internet, which he never used). "Everyone charges that," says the hotel clerk.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-frommer_hidden_fees_pmjan27,0,3426698.story

Nashville restaurateur to fight state gun law

A well-known Nashville restaurant and bar owner plans to sue today to stop the state's new guns-in-bars law from taking effect later this month. The case will center on claims that the law would create a public nuisance that threatens the safety of the public, and violates the constitutional rights of restaurant/bar owners, patrons and employees. Randy Rayburn, owner of the Sunset Grill, Midtown Cafe and Cabana, said advocates pushing the law falsely claimed that nearly 40 other states had similar laws. He said the law creates increased liability for him and other owners and is a matter of public safety.

Read more:
http://www.topix.com/business/restaurant-management/2009/07/nashville-restaurateur-to-fight-state-gun-law

Rate integrity in a down market

Participants of a recent Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management Thought Leaders in Revenue Management Roundtable discussed ways to avoid price dropping and issues of managing rate integrity in current market conditions in Asia.
Over the twenty years that Revenue Management has been in practice in the hospitality industry, most of the principles have been learned in a sound economy, commented Dr. Sheryl E. Kimes, Singapore Tourism Board Distinguished Professor of Asian Hospitality Management, who recently led the Revenue Management Roundtable in Singapore, hosted by the Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management (CNI), along with iDeas, a SAS Company.

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http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/article/rate_integrity_in_a_down_market/

Release of Initial Operating Statistics for City of Dreams

NEW YORK, July 2, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Melco Crown Entertainment Limited (Nasdaq:MPEL - News), a developer and owner of casino gaming and entertainment resort facilities focused on the Macau market, today announced initial operating statistics for City of Dreams, its new urban integrated entertainment resort that opened on June 1.

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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Release-of-Initial-Operating-pz-3012266574.html?x=0&.v=1