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1. Owners of CitizenM Hotel Brand Explore Options
Bisnow and The Financial Times report that "the pension funds that own the global hotel chain CitizenM are exploring options for the business, which could include a sale for as much as [$4.3 billion]."
Dutch pension fund APG and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC have reportedly appointed Morgan Stanley and Eastdil Secured to advise on options.
According to the reports: "Options could include the sale of a minority stake as well as a full sale. ... GIC bought a 25% stake in citizenM five years ago, and that deal valued the business at €2 billion ($2.2 billion). The chain has since grown from 15 hotels to 40 in North America, Europe and Asia, and new locations are under construction in Boston, Miami and Dublin."
2. Disney Mining Closed 'Star Wars' Hotel for Parts
An experiment in an immersive hotel experience, Disney's "Star Wars" hotel, the Galactic Starcruiser, failed spectacularly in large part due to the high cost — $5,000 or more for a two-night stay. The attraction closed after just 18 months.
But Disney is determined to ensure it's not a total loss. SFGate's travel writer Julie Tremaine reports that pieces of the attraction are being incorporated into the wider Disneyland park as "Season of the Force," for a fraction of the price.
3. Door Lock Hack Raises Questions for Hoteliers
New vulnerabilities in a brand of hotel guestroom door locks — recently uncovered by researchers and reported by Wired — should prompt hotel owners to question their assumptions regarding security, according to an IT consultant who spoke with Hotel News Now's Bryan Wroten.
“The assumption that no one could get their hands on [a hotel's software and devices] is in fact a flawed assumption, and that’s actually what these researchers demonstrated,” said Ted Harrington, executive partner at IT consultancy firm Independent Security Evaluators. “You could go get them secondhand on eBay. You can ask for them, especially if you are presenting yourself in the context of research. There's other reasons why someone might give one up. It can even be stolen.”
Sandy Garfinkel, attorney and co-chair of McNees Wallace & Nurick’s privacy and data security group, said the potential hack also raises questions of duty and liability for hotels.
4. Weekly US Hotel Performance Up Versus Last Year
The latest weekly hotel performance data from CoStar shows that the U.S. industry fared better in all three key metrics compared to the same week in 2023.
For the week of March 17-23, U.S. hotel occupancy was 65.3%, up 0.7% year over year; and average daily rate reached $162.28, a 2.5% increase. That resulted in a 3.2% rise in revenue per available room to $106.01 for the week.
That reverses a worrying trend — the previous two weeks, U.S. hotel industry RevPAR has been down year over year, in part due to lower rates, indicating that hotels have lost some pricing power.
5. 'DIY Room Service' On the Rise at Hotels
"There have never been more options for meal delivery to your room — or other parts of the hotel," the Wall Street Journal reports in an examination of how mobile dining and food delivery apps are overtaking traditional room service at many hotels.
"Call it do-it-yourself room service. Food delivery, a pandemic necessity when other food options were limited, has become one of those travel habits that didn’t fade. Given that many hotel chains outside the high end don’t offer traditional room service these days, the industry has had to adapt," Dawn Gilbertson of the Journal writes.
Hotels have taken ownership of some of those meal options, such as with Caesars Entertainment's Caesars Eats app. Other franchises, including Hilton, have embraced and partnered with apps such as GrubHub.