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Hotel Lawyers -- featured subjects and articles
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ADA defense and compliance

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Hotel Management Agreements

Hotel Franchise & License Agreements

Hotel industry trends

This is Jim Butler, author of www.HotelLawBlog.com and hotel lawyer. Please contact me at Jim Butler at jbutler@jmbm.com or 310.201.3526.

Published on:

5 September 2008

Hotel brand proliferation offers more choices — and challenges — for hotel owners. What are the 5 questions every owner should ask before selecting a hotel brand?

With the battle scars earned as the hotel lawyer and advisor on several hundred hotel management agreements, my partner, Bob Braun, is one of the senior members of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group®. While we have a very “deep bench” of hospitality lawyers experienced in dealing with hotel operators, Bob is one of the real veterans who has seen it all.

Bob and I work together frequently, and we often present practical guidance on many aspects of hotel management agreements at industry conferences and here on the Blog. In fact, an entire section of the Blog is devoted to Hotel Management Agreements. (Just go to www.HotelLawBlog.com and click on the “TOPICS” tab at the top, and then select “Hotel Management Agreements.” Alternatively, you can point your browser to https://hotellaw.jmbm.com/management_and_franchise_agree/).

Many of our rich library of resources focus on getting the right hotel operator, and how to get a fair management agreement, but today Bob gives us 5 Questions that every hotel owner needs to ask BEFORE even getting to the hotel management agreement.

Here is Bob Braun’s article. . .

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

12 August 2008

Hospitality Lawyer with the 3 most important issues facing the hospitality industry today and what you can do about them. Formed in 1910 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the American Hotel & Lodging Association is the sole national association representing all sectors and stakeholders in the lodging industry. For almost 100 years, AH&LA has been the leading voice for the hotel industry, providing national advocacy on Capitol Hill — a comprehensive federal governmental affairs program covering legislative and regulatory issues for the lodging industry. (see www.ahla.com)

AH&LA has a lot on its agenda, but when I caught up with AH&LA Chairman, Tom Corcoran, he identified 3 of the most important issues to the hospitality industry and asked that we really focus our attention. Here they are . . .

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

10 August 2008


Industry insights from JMBM’s Hospitality Lawyers.
Some of the most popular articles here are the industry updates, like the ones posted after NYU and the NABHOOD Conference a few weeks ago, with many of the industry experts’ top slides.

One of the most popular slides from Jan Freitag of Smith Travel Research posted on www.HotelLawBlog.com
triggered quite a few questions about the impact of currency exchange rates on our industry, so I thought I would offer a little more detail to those who are intrigued by America being on sale because of the fall of dollar against most of the world’s major currencies.

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

2 August 2008

HHOA talks with Hospitality Lawyer – A compelling demographic of opportunity for all and the next big wave of hotel investment. I recently sat down with Angela Gonzalez-Rowe, President of the Hispanic Hotel Owners Association or HHOA (see www.hhoa.org) , to talk about our newest hospitality trade organization. The hospitality lawyers at JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® see some truly compelling opportunities for Hispanics or Latinos and all traditional hospitality players here. Check into this ground floor opportunity!

[And for the curious, I have some demographics of the Hispanic and Latino communities in the U.S., as well as a discussion of what “Hispanic” and “Latino” really mean.]

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

29 July 2008
Keywords:

Hotel Operating Agreement, HOA, Hotel Management Agreement, HMA, Hotel Management Contract, Management Contract. Hotel Operator, Hotel Manager, Hotel Owner. RFP for Hotel Manager. RFP for Hotel Operator, How to get a great hotel operator.

Terminology

Contracts between hotel owners and managers (or operators) controlling the management of a hotel go by various names. They are called hotel management agreements, HMAs, hotel management contracts or hotel operating agreements. For convenient reference, this article will generally use the term “Hotel Management Agreement” or “HMA.” However all these terms can be used interchangeably and mean the same thing, just as with hotel operator or hotel manager.

Whatever they are called, Hotel Management Agreements allocate risk between the hotel manager and the hotel owner. They are critical in determining the profitability and value of a hotel.

Hospitality Lawyer: How to survive some of the custom and “lore” of Hotel Management Agreement Indemnification Provisions.

While we have a very deep bench of hospitality lawyers — particularly in hotel management agreements — my partner, Bob Braun, is one of the most experienced on our team, with several hundred management contracts to his credit, and a dozen or more on his current work schedule at any point in time.

So it was no surprise when he suggested recently that we work together on a few articles going “beyond the basics” of hotel management agreements and post them for our industry friends on www.HotelLawBlog.com. We decided to call this upcoming series, “Hotel Management Agreements 201.” Bob took the lead in putting this first one together on the critical area of INDEMNIFICATION, and here it is.

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Published on:

27 July 2008

Hospitality Lawyer — Why we need to maintain the discipline to keep ADRs up! As hotel occupancy rates are tending to soften nationally, the data from Smith Travel Research (STR) tells us that the industry has continued to do well because average daily rates (ADRs) have continued to rise, particularly in the Top 25 markets, and in the market segments that STR calls Luxury, Upper Upscale, Upscale and Midscale without Food & Beverage.

But there is a new threat to industry profits looming on the horizon — something beyond pestilence, war, recession, and falling airline seat capacity, and this is within our own control if we will just behave rationally. Here’s the scoop from www.HotelLawBlog.com.

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

21 July 2008

Hospitality Lawyer: What a difference a year makes! Where we’ve been and where we’re going. Practical advice and observations from Tom Baltimore. On July 17, 2008, at the NABHOOD Conference in Atlanta, the experts gave us the latest update on the Hotel Industry since NYU. (See the 5-part series at www.HotelLawBlog.com analyzing the data available at June 1, 2008 at “Quips, Quotes and Insights from the 2008 NYU hotel conference.”).

Trends continue to emerge and JMBM’s hospitality lawyers have 3 hot July updates for you on the state of the industry:

1. Jan Freitag, Vice President of Smith Travel Research (jan@smithtravelresearch.com)

2. Mark Woodworth, President of PKF Hospitality Research (mark.woodworth@pkfc.com)

3. Tom Baltimore, President of RLJ Development, LLC (www.rljcompanies.com)

You can also find the Top 10 Picks from www.HotelLawBlog.com by clicking here.

Here’s the way Thomas J. Baltimore, Jr., Vice Chairman of NABHOOD and President of RLJ Development, summed things up.

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

20 July 2008

Hospitality Lawyer: What lies ahead for the hotel industry? On July 17, 2008, at the NABHOOD Conference in Atlanta, the experts gave us the latest update on the Hotel Industry since NYU. (See the 5-part series at www.HotelLawBlog.com analyzing the data available at June 1, 2008 at “Quips, Quotes and Insights from the 2008 NYU hotel conference.”).

Trends continue to emerge and JMBM’s hospitality lawyers have 3 hot July updates for you on the state of the industry:

1. Jan Freitag, Vice President of Smith Travel Research (jan@smithtravelresearch.com)

2. Mark Woodworth, President of PKF Hospitality Research (mark.woodworth@pkfc.com)

3. Tom Baltimore, President of RLJ Development, LLC (www.rljcompanies.com)

You can also find the Top 10 Picks from www.HotelLawBlog.com by clicking here.

Here’s Mark Woodworth’s analysis of “What Lies Ahead,” and it is very interesting . . .

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

19 July 2008

Hospitality Lawyer: What’s happened in the hotel industry since the NYU Hotel Investment Conference in June? The NABHOOD Conference in Atlanta was the place to be this week, as I reported in my recent blog entitled “Hospitality Attorney salutes NABHOOD
On Thursday, July 17, 2008, the inspiration and insights continued to flow, with the latest industry data and predictions since NYU. (See the 5-part series at www.HotelLawBlog.com analyzing the data available at June 1, 2008 at “Quips, Quotes and Insights from the 2008 NYU hotel conference.”). Another month and a half are under our belts since the NYU Hotel Investment Conference, and the hospitality lawyers from JMBM have 3 hot July updates for you on the state of the industry:

1. Jan Freitag, Vice President of Smith Travel Research (jan@smithtravelresearch.com)

2. Mark Woodworth, President of PKF Hospitality Research (mark.woodworth@pkfc.com)

3. Tom Baltimore, President of RLJ Development, LLC (www.rljcompanies.com)

Here’s Jan Freitag’s Smith Travel Research July update . . .

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

16 July 2008

Hospitality lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia at the kick-off for the NABHOOD Annual Convention. If you are not yet a member, sponsor or supporter of NABHOOD — the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers — you need to check out this dynamic organization, whose members own about 325 hotels (up from just 1 in 2001). Thanks to my friend Andy Ingraham, President and Founder of NABHOOD, I am attending the Association’s 12th Annual Summit in Atlanta as a speaker and participant, and JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® is a proud sponsor of this event.

As you can tell from many postings here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, I have been attending (and hosting) hospitality conferences for many years and I can tell you that the energy, vision and skill this group is bringing to the industry is just amazing. I like to think of myself as a great networker — connecting people in the industry to get deals done. But I have met my match. No, I have to say, I have now seen the grand master in action, and I take my hat off to Andy Ingraham and what he helps NABHOOD members do. Congratulations, Andy!

CONTINUE READING →

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