Marriott International announced in a news release Friday it has reached an agreement with the board of Elegant Hotels Group on an all-cash offer to acquire Elegant in an effort to grow Marriott’s all-inclusive platform. “The offer price values the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of Elegant at approximately £100.8 million ($130.1 million),” the release states. 

Elegant owns and operates seven hotels comprising 588 rooms and a beachfront restaurant in Barbados, and a majority of the properties are all-inclusive resorts, according to the release. Marriott launched its all-inclusive platform on 5 August. 

“There is a strong and growing consumer demand for premium and luxury properties in the all-inclusive category,” Marriott President and CEO Arne Sorenson said in the release. “The addition of the Elegant portfolio will help us further jumpstart our expansion in the all-inclusive space, while providing more choices on the breathtaking island of Barbados for our 133 million Marriott Bonvoy members.”

To kick off the third-quarter earnings season, Accor and InterContinental Hotels Group have both released their results to investors and shareholders.

Accor’s group revenue in Q3 was up 10.9% year over year and up 4.1% on a like-for-like basis. While revenue per available room overall grew by 0.7%, performance varied by region. “Europe was relatively resilient (+1.2%), while Asia Pacific recorded a slight decline (-1.1%), mainly due to the environment in China,” a news release states. Accor opened 60 hotels during the quarter with 8,500 rooms. As of the end of September, its portfolio totaled 726,345 rooms across 4,946 hotels.

During the same quarter, IHG also reported RevPAR declines in the Greater China region due to the “ongoing unrest” in Hong Kong, where RevPAR was down 36%, according to a news release. In the Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa region, RevPAR was up 0.3% year to date. For the Americas, RevPAR remained flat year to date. 

During a busy first half of the year, Apple Hospitality REIT sold nine assets, acquired two and signed contracts for seven more, and stayed focused on maintaining margins in a low revenue-growth environment, President and CEO Justin Knight said during a video interview with Hotel News Now’s Dana Miller at The Lodging Conference.

“We focused a lot over the years on productivity initiatives, becoming more energy efficient … looking for ways to improve our bottom line through really fine-tuning our operating model,” he said.

Several major hotel chains, such as Marriott and Hilton, are expanding their footprints of microhotels in big cities, taking inspiration from smaller operators, including CitizenM, Yotel, Mama Shelter and Pod Hotels, The Washington Post reports.

The word “micro” used to be associated with “cheap and small,” but now more often denotes “higher-quality, experimental and kind of cool,” said Jim Anhut, director of the hospitality business real estate minor at Michigan State University.

It’s also about encouraging the guest to get out of the room and into the public space, said Jing Yang, an assistant professor at New York University’s Tisch Center of Hospitality.

Before 2019, the last luxury hotel to open in Boston was the Mandarin Oriental, 11 years ago. Today, the city is in the midst of a boom of luxury hotels, the Boston Globe reports.

Singapore-based Raffles broke ground in September on a 33-story, $400 million building to house a hotel, residences and six bars and restaurants. The Whitney and a second Four Seasons opened this summer, and three additional newly renovated hotels are set to open by 2022, the article states.

“This will come as good news for those who don’t mind paying more to spend their nights sleeping in sheets with a high thread count. According to Sebastian Colella, VP of the Pinnacle Advisory Group, the luxury boom is being fueled by a shortage of posh hotel rooms, which currently make up just 5% of the city’s hotel inventory,” the Globe reports.

Compiled by Dana Miller.