Posts for 'Hotels/Motels' Category

How are hotels helping those who miss seeing and being seen by loved ones?

The Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass., liquidated ice-machine rooms, turned them into into free computer stations and added Skype and video cameras. That means guests needn't lug computers and cameras, and they can dial up significant others with Skype accounts and have free, face-to-face conversations. They also can open a Skype account, which is gratis.

Kimpton's Hotel Burnham in Chicago lets guests send free video "postcards" via a messaging system at the concierge desk. Guests love the simplicity of the ICTV system. "No downloading, no cords, just record-and-send," says Jennifer Navarro, spokeswoman for Chicago Kimpton Hotels.

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It's all about golf. The big reason why hoteliers collected $361,000 in 2006, and why they'll collect 20 percent less in 2010, is golf packages. That's an oversimplification, of course. John Scherlacher says hotel-motel tax collections also come from the races and softball and fishing and the triathlon and lots of other attractions.

But Scherlacher and Mike Peek point out that Highlands County is competing with Tampa, Orlando and Sarasota for the Midwestern golf dollars. And, they add, we're not doing as badly as the numbers indicate. "The raceway is the number one attraction," said Scherlacher, tourism director at Highlands County Visitor and Convention Bureau. But the year-round draw is the 17 golf courses.

He remains in contact with the hotels and motels that offer golf packages. Inn on the Lakes, for instance, offers two nights and three days of 18-hole rounds of golfing, carts, greens fees, free breakfasts and lakeside rooms starting at $134.

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THREE LANDMARK London hotels, the Berkeley, Claridges and the Connaught, which are owned by financier Derek Quinlan's Maybourne Hotel Group, may end up being controlled by the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) within the next few months as the transfer of an initial €16 billion in loans nears completion.

According to well-placed sources, the first tranche of properties earmarked for Nama will also include five prestigious Irish hotels: the Shelbourne, the K-Club, the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Wicklow, and the Radisson and G Hotel in Galway. All these high-profile establishments are linked to the top 10 developers whose multi-billion-euro portfolios will form the first wave of €80 billion in loans being moved into the State's asset recovery agency.

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Encouraged by the growing flow of domestic and foreign tourists in the state, Bihar will open deluxe restaurants and motels on selected highways to provide tasty, hygienic food to tourists, apart from options of short stay with comfort.

“We were told by several foreign tourists about the difficult in getting good food along highways,” said Rashmi Verma, managing director of Bihar State Tourism Development Corp, the nodal government agency for hospitality projects in the state.

“Now deluxe restaurants and motels will be set up and and provide facilities for short stay, along with food and clean toilets,” Verma added. In the first phase of the project, such deluxe restaurants will be set up on highways connecting popular Buddhist circuits of Bodh Gaya, Rajgir and Nalanda, she said.

Tourism ministry officials said Bihar witnessed a significant increase in the number of foreign tourists to the state over the past few years despite the global slowdown and other factors like swine flu. From 95,000 foreign tourists who visited Bihar in 2006, the numbers have increased to 356,000 by end-October of this year. The number of domestic travellers has also grown to 12.2 million.

British visitors to South Africa during the World Cup next June could have to pay five times the usual rate for a hotel room. Hoteliers, official accommodation agents and tour operators are all taking advantage of the limited availability during the five-week tournament.

Research this week on Hotels.com, the accommodation website, showed that the four-star, centrally located Cape Town Lodge Hotel, which from May 28 to June 5 charges £68 per room per night, is raising its rate on June 11, when the tournament gets under way, to £395.

That is a rise of 480 per cent and makes its rate £120 more than the Ritz in London charges for a double room during the same period. Room rates at the five-star Compass House Boutique Villa in Bantry Bay, Cape Town, will rise from £58 per night to £312 – an increase of 438 per cent.

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Burns Lake fire chief Jim McBride said that last Tuesday's fire in a storage shed facility behind the Burns Lake Band's Rainbow Motel was definitely a suspicious fire.

"It was a separate structure that had no electricity to it, as far as I can tell it [the structure] was just used as storage shed," he said.

According to McBride the building held approximately 90 per cent consumables such as paper which added a great deal of fuel to the fire.

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VoSKY, the market leader in developing Skype for business solutions, today announced that Hotel chain Hotetur, property of Group Marsans, has been the latest to deploy its award winning VoSKY Exchange PBX-to-Skype gateway to reduce communications costs and enhance employee productivity. By integrating its PBX to VoSKY Exchange, Hotetur is able to connect to Skype to enjoy the benefits of Internet Telephony.

With more than 30 sites located throughout Spain, Cuba, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, Hotetur needed a communications solution which would let its different locations, and its personnel who travel all over the world, to contact one another easily and cost-effectively.

Hotetur searched for a telephone tariff, which could be revised in relation to the volume of calls made by the hotels. However, this proved to be difficult, so they looked for an alternative method of communication, and after assessing several options the hotel chain opted for VoSKY's solution.

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The Washington region's hotels raked in $94.8 million over the four-day period surrounding President Obama's inauguration, a haul that was boosted by guests who paid an average $605 a night Jan. 20 to stay in the city.

The figures, provided yesterday by Destination DC, the city's official tourism arm, cover the period beginning Jan. 17 and ending Jan. 20, the day that Barack Obama was sworn in. The tourism revenue might far outpace the nearly $70 million that the District, Maryland, Virginia and Metro say they spent to provide transportation, law enforcement and other services for inaugural events.

Within the District's borders, the hotel occupancy rate was 84 percent Jan. 17, 95 percent Jan. 18, 98 percent Jan. 19 and 96 percent Jan. 20."Our city relies heavily on the revenues generated by travel and tourism. In today's troubled economy, tourism, meetings and events keep our residents employed," William A. Hanbury, president and chief executive of Destination DC, said in a statement.

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Hotels are the first sector in the commercial real-estate market to feel the economic pinch, and next year will be a challenge for hotel owners and operators. The foundering economy likely will limit both business and leisure travel.

Even international travel to the U.S.– a bright spot so far this year for gateway markets such as New York  is expected to “moderate” due to the weakening global economy, the recent gain in the value of the U.S. dollar, and the cancellation of many long-haul flights to the U.S., noted analysts at Green Street Advisors.

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Houston-based Amidee Hotels and Resorts plans to restore the historic Hotel Niagara in downtown Niagara Falls, N.Y.

The $15.2 million renovation will transform the 12-story Greek revival building into a full-service luxury boutique hotel with 193 guest rooms. The amount includes $4 million in grants from USA Niagara Development Corp. and the city of Niagara Falls.

Amenities will include a rooftop club with a view of the falls, a fitness center, a business center, a grill and lounge, a fine-dining restaurant, meeting space and boutique shops.

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