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As more hotels pledge to strive for carbon-neutral operations, Bloomberg reports that the hotel industry broadly continues to struggle with the environmental costs of construction and renovation, even at those most energy-conscious hotels. The issue, the news outlet notes, is embodied carbon from the manufacturing of construction materials.

The news report points to the Hotel Marcel in New Haven, Connecticut, as a specific example of the issue. That hotel, which was an adaptive reuse of an office building, was touted as the first hotel in the U.S. with net-zero carbon emissions. But speaking to Bloomberg, people tied to the project said that promise was for operations, not construction.

"The Marcel’s triple-glazed windows? Good for keeping heating and cooling costs down, but a massive carbon emitter to manufacture. The hotel’s new, more efficient mechanical systems? They, too, emit large amounts of carbon during fabrication, transportation, and installation. Demolition of old walls? More carbon. Drywall, interior finishes, and bath fixtures for all 169 rooms? Carbon, carbon, carbon — all ignored in the Marcel’s net-zero promise," the news agency reports.

Officials with McNeill Hotel Company have announced a joint venture with Prospect Ridge and Fulcrum Hospitality. The company will now operate as McNeill Investment Group, according to a news release.

"Property management assignments will continue to be organized under McNeill Hotel Company, with the Prospect Ridge joint venture and McNeill Hotel Company units of newly formed McNeill Investment Group (MIG). McNeill also announced that it has successfully concluded its investment and property management relationship with Almanac Realty Investors, a business unit of Neuberger Berman, a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager," the news release states.

McNeill is adding 12 select-service and extended-stay hotels to the joint venture.

The latest J.D. Power 2022 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study shows declining guest satisfaction is tied, at least in part, to consumers paying more for stays at a point when hotels continue to delay maintenance and renovations to maintain on-property experience, HNN's Dana Miller reports. In the survey, guest satisfaction declined by eight points from 2021, which J.D. Power's hospitality practice lead Andrea Stokes described as "statistically significant."

"When you break out costs, because it is one factor that we roll up into our overall satisfaction score along with food and beverage and guest rooms, the cost and fees factor [resulted in guest satisfaction declining] by 18 points," she said. "We don't often see double digits like that, but we're not in a normal [price environment] still."

Hotel rooms in the construction pipeline declined in each of the four global regions, as tracked by CoStar's hospitality analytics firm STR, although the decline wasn't felt evenly.

The largest year-over-year decrease in rooms under contract was in Europe, down 7.4% to 520,859, with a 12.6% decrease in rooms in construction to 207,315.

The largest decline in rooms in construction was in the Americas region, down 16.9% to 202,250, with a 5.8% drop in rooms under contract to 739,777.

The Middle East and Africa experienced a comparatively smaller decline with under-contract rooms staying mostly stable with a 0.6% decline to 237,636, but in-construction rooms declined more noticeably by 6.2% to 127,397.

In the Asia-Pacific region, rooms under contract fell by 1.2% to 917,719, but it was the only region of the four to record an increase in rooms in construction, which jumped 2.1% to 486,412.

A Comfort Inn property in Irving, Texas, was completely destroyed Tuesday when the hotel near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was engulfed by flames, WFAA reports.

No injuries were reported as of this morning.

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