Read the latest hotel industry news from around the Americas region.

Southern California hotel operators and workers, represented by Unite Here Local 11, have been on intermittent strikes since July 1 as they demand better wages and benefits. Workers who are on strike are employed at hotels including the Beverly Hilton and the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel, the Hyatt Regency LAX and the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort and Spa.

The union represents roughly 60 hotels. So far, 43 of them have picketed.

The Los Angeles Times reports that during a recent bargaining session, hotel representatives felt Unite Here Local 11 failed "to bargain in good faith" for the hotels.

“The union made no counteroffer. We are extremely disappointed that Local 11 refuses to bargain in good faith,” Keith Grossman, an attorney representing some of the California hotels, said in a statement. “Local 11 continues to signal that it is more interested in its political agenda than negotiating to reach an agreement.”

Ashford Hospitality Trust, a Dallas-based real estate investment trust, has decided to hand back the keys for 19 hotels after it failed to meet debt yield test on maturing loans, reports Hotel News Now's Sean McCracken. All 19 hotels sat in three pools of commercial mortgage-backed securities loans. Ashford officials decided the required $225 million in paydowns to extend loan terms, which expired in June, would “represent equity value.”

“The company has been in discussions with the lenders on these loan pools seeking modifications to the extension tests, but at this time, it appears that the most likely outcome will be a consensual transfer of these hotels to the respective lenders,” a company news release states.

Ashford President and CEO Rob Hays had previously said that his core focus has been less about business operations and more about the capital markets.

“We’ve got a ton of loans that have extensions this year, that have debt yield tests. We’ve had a $400 million loan earlier this year, where we did basically a $50 million paydown,” he said during a June podcast with Hotel News Now, prior to news about handing back keys to hotels. “Then we had almost a billion-dollar loan that we had after that, which was about a $100 million paydown, and then we’ve got basically another $1.2 billion of loans that are happening right now that we’re currently negotiating.”

Taylor Swift's “Eras Tour,” which began this spring in the U.S. and ends Aug. 17, led to a spike in hotel bookings immediately following the tour announcement in November 2022, reports Hotel News Now's Trevor Simpson.

Derek Sumpter, general manager of Reverb by Hard Rock Downtown Atlanta, said rooms at his property sold out for the whole three-day period within two hours of the tour being announced.

“It felt bigger than even the Super Bowl, to be quite honest with you,” he said.

Though Friday and Saturday performances achieved healthy increases, Sunday was the day of the week that saw the biggest growth in actual occupancy compared to baseline data, Simpson reports. According to data from CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm STR, occupancy jumped nearly 15 percentage points on Sundays compared to about 9 percentage points on Friday and Saturday.

Occupancy at the Reverb grew 200% week over week on Swift's Sunday performance.

Canadian real estate investment, development and management company Oxford Properties Group purchased The Rimrock Resort Hotel in Banff, Alberta, for 168.5 million Canadian dollars ($126.9 million), reports Hotel News Now's Trevor Simpson. The hotel features 333 rooms and is now operated by Accor.

“We are very excited to acquire this extremely unique resort within the vibrant, high-barrier-to-entry Banff market. Our acquisition of The Rimrock speaks to our long-term conviction in Canada’s luxury resort hotel market, where we have meaningful scale,” Tyler MacDonald, head of hotels and alternatives at Oxford Properties, said in the news release announcing the deal. “It also grows our important relationship with Accor, offering world-class resort experiences in renowned destinations across Western Canada.”

• The 229-room Hilton Dallas/Plano Granite Park was purchased by Driftwood Capital from Granite Properties for $86 million.
• The 235-room Four Points by Sheraton San Rafael Marin County was acquired by Equinox Hospitality for $38 million. The hotel will be repositioned under Marriott International's Tribute portfolio.
• Mission Hill Hospitality purchased the 144-room AC Hotel Clearwater Beach for $58.3 million from Norwich Partners.
• Mission Hill Hospitality also purchased the 139-room Courtyard Clearwater Beach for $55.4 million from Norwich Partners.
• Apple Hospitality REIT completed the acquisition of the Courtyard by Marriott Cleveland University Circle in Cleveland, Ohio, for $31 million.
  

• Third-party management company Resolute Road Hospitality appointed Amanda Schaus as chief legal officer and Sergio Cardenas as corporate director of sales and revenue management. The company also promoted Evan Danziger to director of operations and Eric Rock to regional manager.

• The Aloft San Pedro Sula in Honduras opened with 122 rooms.
  
• Hilton Signed an a management agreement for the 540-room Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe All-Inclusive Resort.
  
• Loren Hotel Group broke ground on The Loren at Turtle Cove in Turks & Caicos. The hotel is expected to open in 2026.

Read more news on Hotel News Now.