Hotel & Motel Management - December 10, 2007 - (Page 4)

4 News H&MM December 10, 2007 | HotelMotel.com www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition Wildﬁres test hotels’ emergency plans By Jason Q. Freed ASSOCIATE EDITOR Red Roof Inn will move its headquarters from Carrollton, Texas, to Columbus, Ohio, in the ﬁrst quarter of 2008. Red Roof Inn was ﬁrst incorporated in Columbus in 1972. The move was precipitated by Accor North America’s April sale of the brand to Citi Global Special Situations Group and Westbridge Hospitality Fund. Accor’s Soﬁtel Luxury Hotels will reposition into two brands to address niches in the luxury market. The Soﬁtel Legend brand will include seven historic properties already part of Soﬁtel’s portfolio. The So by Soﬁtel brand will feature smaller boutique properties with trendy design, with a goal of 15 to 20 hotels. Wyndham Hotel Group launched The Wyndham Grand Collection, a global group of 11 luxury and upscale properties in its portfolio that features regionalized experiences in distinctive destinations. Sonesta International Hotels Corp.’s former president Paul Sonnabend retired in November. He was president of the company for 20 years and had been executive v.p. since 1996. San Diego County, Calif.– John Gates received a wake-up call at 4:30 a.m. on Oct. 22. It was one of his employees at the Rancho Bernardo (Calif.) Inn, located in an inland resort community about 20 miles north of San Diego, where Gates serves as g.m. The voice on the other end had a sense of urgency. Flames from the wildﬁre they had been monitoring on the local news were approaching their property. “Night management was already in the process of evacuating,” Gates said. “No one bucked it; you could see the ﬂames from the guestroom windows. housing ﬁreﬁghters and Everyone left orderly and rescue crews. efﬁciently. It was impres“I was at zero occusive to see, to be honest.” pancy for two days,” One of the largest of Gates said. “I’ve never 23 wildﬁres that spread been at zero before.” across Southern CaliDuring the evacfornia in late October uation process, Gates burned primarily in the Rauch phoned management at outlying areas north of HILTON HOTELS CORP. the Town and Country San Diego. No hotels or Resort and Convention resorts in that area were lost to ﬁre, Center in Mission Valley, Calif., according to the San Diego North and they agreed to house evacuees Convention and Visitors Bureau. from the Rancho Bernardo Inn. However, several were ﬁlled to ca- Gates stayed at his hotel, along pacity with residents who had to with four other managers who evacuate their homes, a few prop- volunteered, and together, the ﬁve erties faced mandatory evacua- manned phones and guarded the tions themselves, and many oth- property. ers pitched in on relief efforts by Sprinkler systems throughout the two golf courses and one driving range surrounding the Rancho Bernardo Inn were able to stave off the ﬁre, and little damage was done to the building. At the Homewood Suites San Diego-Del Mar, g.m. Bob Rauch used his experience in evacuations to “keep things very calm” this time around. In June, Rauch had to evacuate two properties he oversees, the Homewood Suites and its sister property, the Hilton Garden InnSan Diego, at 2 a.m. because of an internal ﬁre at the Garden Inn. The Garden Inn was completely destroyed during that ﬁre and the Homewood Suites suffered major See Wildﬁres | page 42 Money takes on new look LIIC roundtable: Capital remains available for hotel projects By Jeff Higley EDITORIAL DIRECTOR For updated breaking news, visit www.HotelMotel.com. ALL PHOTOS H&MM | JEFF HIGLEY If an economic recession occurs in 2008-2009, the U.S. lodging industry could lose 6.1 percent in room revenue through 2010, according to a forecast by PKF Hospitality Research. PKF’s current forecast without a recession calls for an annual growth rate of 5.5 percent in revenue per available room over the next three years. Phoenix–In the heat of the Arizona desert and the credit crunch, members of the Lodging Industry Investment Council said there still is plenty of money looking for a home, and borrowers are eyeing the hotel market. Angelo Stambules, v.p. of lending, hospitality for Capmark Finance, said some potential buyers even have found themselves back in the bidding for an asset they thought they had lost out on. “There’s a lot of equity out there that is going to make up a big gap of the debt stack, but it’s got to be repriced as well,” he said. “Although we haven’t seen deals actually priced lower, we are hearing now from guys who are the second, third bidder in an auction calling us and saying, ‘The ﬁrst guy is down, we’re back in the game. Are you guys interested?’ We think that’s all healthy and expect that ’08 is going to be a great year.” Other lenders identiﬁed key issues: Jeff McKee, managing director, Premier Capital Associates: “On construction, [the debt markets] have followed the lodging increase in spreads that the capital markets have put out there. It’s an opportunistic play from the lender’s perspective. Having been on that side, everybody else’s rates have spread … why shouldn’t we opportunistically take advantage of that? They can enjoy putting those out at smaller increments. In other words, their spreads don’t go up quite as fast. It’s getting really disturbing.” Adam Valente [left], v.p., RockBridge Capital, and Bill Sipple, corporate Frank Anderson, v.p., development, full-service hotels for Carlson Hotels Worldwide, discuss senior v.p. and inter- hot-button issues at the Lodging Industry Investment Council meeting. national head of hospitality, gaming and leisure for HSH Nordbank: “We haven’t seen rationally bearish,” Deming said. “People are evidence of things opening up at all, mainly be- underwriting loans—not for ﬁve or 10 years, cause distribution channels seem to be clogged but for 30, 60 or 90 days to get it out in the disat the moment. Very few people are buying off tribution channels. We’re certainly not going the paper. If you decide you need a transaction, back to where it is. But we’re seeing people not it’s very difﬁcult to get secondary pass-through want to do 55 [percent] or 60 [percent] [loanof any type of underwriting.” to-value] loans with great sponsorship and fresh Patrick Deming, managing director of equity coming in. That’s not going to last. That Eastdil Secured, said the current envi- is an irrational bearishness. I think we’ll see a lot ronment has had a side effect. better visibility. We’re seeing some light.” “It’s letting some lenders be irMark Tobin, president of Hospitality Real Estate Counselors’ Development Resources division, specializes in deals that bring together Bernie Siegel, principal, KSL public-entity ﬁnancing and private hotel comCapital Partners, panies for joint-venture lodging projects. He makes a said the market has been good for those types point during of deals, and HREC expects to oversee $600 September’s LIIC million to $800 million in these types of deals roundtable. See Roundtable | page 39 http://www.hotelmotel.com http://www.hotelmotel.com/digital_edition http://www.hotelmotel.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Hotel & Motel Management - December 10, 2007

Table of Contents News Wildfires test hotels' emergency plans LIIC roundtable: Capital available for hotel projects Departments Perspective Letters to the Editor At Your Risk Family Business Matters Sales Clinic On Finance Satisfaction Trends HotelWorld Update Events Trends & Stats Special Report H&MM's "year in review" tackles the top seven in 2007 Transactions Consumer Insight Travelers rank free breakfast high on must-have items Hot Products IH/M&RS Editors' Choice Award winners Construction Spending up, costs steady in construction Design Window treatments Ad/Editorial Index Marketplace Classifieds Checking Out

Hotel & Motel Management - December 10, 2007

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