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After five years at the helm of the largest hotel association in America, Chip Rogers has resigned as president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. AHLA represents more than 30,000 members. Rogers' resignation was effective March 1, and a committee has been formed to evaluate potential replacements, HNN's Bryan Wroten reports.

AHLA Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Carey has taken on the role in an interim capacity.

“As we begin our search for a permanent AHLA president and CEO, the association is in capable hands,” AHLA Board Chair Kevin Jacobs said in a news release. “Kevin’s deep knowledge of AHLA’s operations and his relationships with hospitality stakeholders throughout the industry make him the right leader for AHLA during this transition.”

When the village of Godfrey, Illinois, started requiring special-use permits for short-term rentals, one operator claimed the property as a hotel. Now village officials are looking into redefining what a "hotel" is, news site riverbender.com reports.

“When we took up the issue of short-term rentals — when all those became special use permits — as soon as that happened, one of the individuals that was causing the problem that created the special use problem in the first place said, ‘Well that’s fine, I don’t need to be a short-term rental, I’m a hotel now,'” Village Attorney Philip Lading said.

“In an attempt to keep this person from operating a 'hotel' without any of the regulations or taxes normally required of hotels, Lading proposed tightening up the village’s definition of the term and drafted an ordinance to do so,” the news site reports.

Many hotel-focused real estate investment trusts have sat on the transactions sidelines for much of the past year, but several factors are giving executives more confidence to buy in 2024, HNN's Dana Miller reports.

"2024 may be a transition year where last year, there was a lot of interest but of lack of conviction. This year, I think it's probably transitioning to a lot of interest but building conviction," Thomas Fisher, co-president and chief investment officer at Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, said during that company's latest earnings call.

"And I think part of that is given the fact that investors think that the worst is behind them in terms of that cost and that they can actually underwrite assets and underwrite that cost and hopefully improving debt costs from that perspective," Fisher said.

"Sleep suites" at the Park Hyatt New York feature mattresses that pair with smartphones and adjust as guests move "to optimize deep sleep." The enhanced sleep package at the Carillon Miami Wellness Resort employs "infrared light, electromagnetic frequencies, salt floats and vibration." And the Beaumont in London features "perhaps the cocooniest room of them all." These and other hotels are taking sleep tourism to the next level, the New York Times reports.

“Hotels locked in a death match with Airbnb have begun to explore ways in which to compete by offering services and amenities around the primary purpose of a hotel stay: a restful night’s sleep,” said Chekitan Dev, a distinguished professor at the Cornell University Nolan School of Hotel Administration.

The InterContinental Singapore is promoting a package which offers guests "rain insurance," which will reimburse one night of a stay if any planned activities are rained out, CNN Travel reports.

There are caveats to the "Rain Resist Bliss" package — the rain must exceed two hours in duration within any four-hour block of time during daylight hours.

The hotel's general manager said the idea was spurred by a conversation with a group of friends in which a guarantee of good weather was floated as "the next level of ultimate luxury travel."

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