Hotel Law Blog

1 November 2011

Congratulations to Hotel Management on a great annual hotel conference in Washington DC.

Our heartiest congratulations to Stacy Silver and Stephanie Ricca of Hotel Management and their team for a great first day (just ended) on their 3rd annual hotel conference, now called NATHIC (North America Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference). This was my first time attending this conference, but it certainly won’t be my last.

Washington DC makes an excellent venue for a conference, because it is efficient to combine the conference with business meetings with so many hotel companies based in the greater metropolitan area. Washington DC is a capital of the hotel industry.

So here is my take on the trip to Washington, DC and the NATHIC conference so far.

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15 October 2011

Optimistic keynote at the Dallas Lenders Conference from FelCor Chairman Tom Corcoran

One of the bright spots at Steve Van’s Fishing for Solutions lender conference was the keynote address given by FelCor Lodging Trust Chairman, Thomas J. Corcoran. Known for his blunt and sometimes salty candor, Tom sounded a call for a reality check for doomsayers, likes where we are now in the hotel industry and expects things to get better.

Yes, he reads the newspapers, knows all about the “market volatility” and pokes fun at how the world cringes on reports that Slovakia may not approve the European bailout of Greece. Everyone is over-reacting to news he says.

Here are the details . . .

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27 September 2011

Hotel Lawyers with some (very) good news.

Of course there are plenty of macro economic issues and industry challenges to worry about. (See It’s not just me. The market has changed.)

But there are also some things to feel good about. If you want to be gloomy, go read your newspaper. If you want to cheer up, keep reading.

Here are a few nuggets of information to brighten your day.

[The slides in this article are taken from presentations at The Lodging Conference in Phoenix by Mark Woodworth of PKF, and Vail Brown of Smith Travel research. We appreciate their permission to use their slides.]

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25 September 2011

Hotel lawyers: Are we at a turning point in the industry?

Our hotel lawyers were at The Lodging Conference in Phoenix last week, taking the measure of the hotel industry. It was pretty interesting. Some said August was a “turning point” and they were not referring to a good thing.

At the Hotel Law Blog, what happens in Phoenix does not stay in Phoenix. Here’s what we heard.

“It’s not just me. The market has changed in just the last 60 days!”

While many people at the Lodging Conference said recent market volatility had no impact on them, their transactions or their deals, this was clearly not the case for all.

A widely-held view was that it seems like someone hit the “PAUSE” button on hotel finance and purchase-sale transactions. Some fear a “reset” button may also have been tripped. The global market turmoil of the past 30-60 days triggered by the inability of our politicians to resolve deep U.S. budget issues, along with questions about political resolve by European governments to deal with their own problems continue to raise major issues.

And there are all the usual specters of big increases in taxes, continued high unemployment, sagging consumer confidence, rising labor costs, rampant inflation to deal with $14 trillion of debt, operating costs rising faster than RevPAR as well as war, plague and pestilence.

So here are some insights from industry leaders and vignettes JMBM’s hotel lawyers gathered at the Phoenix Lodging Conference. In many cases we have omitted the speaker’s names because I was not certain that the comments were intended for attribution.

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