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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.

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Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
10 June 2008
Hospitality lawyer with pearls from the New York hospitality conference. The mood in New York was more somber in June 2008 than it has been for a long time at hotel conferences. Final attendance was about 2400 (about the same as last year) and for the first time, NYU had fewer conference delegates than the Los Angeles conference in January (3,200 at ALIS in January 2008). Many believe that attendance at these conferences is a good barometer of sentiment in the industry — send more people when times are good, and send fewer when you batten down the hatches for a storm.

I had the opportunity to listen to Randy Smith and Mark Lomanno of Smith Travel Research in two sessions this past week — one private session at the Lodging Industry’s think tank (the Lodging Industry Investment Council or LIIC) and in the general opening session at NYU. My commentary includes selected slides from STR, and a link to the full STR presentation can be found at the end of the article. Here is a Hospitality Attorney’s executive summary.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
9 June 2008
Hospitality lawyer with pearls from the New York hospitality conference. The mood in New York was more somber in June 2008 than it has been for a long time at hotel conferences. Final attendance was about 2400 (about the same as last year) and for the first time, NYU had fewer conference delegates than the Los Angeles conference in January (3,200 at ALIS in January 2008). Many believe that attendance at these conferences is a good barometer of sentiment in the industry — send more people when times are good, and send fewer when you batten down the hatches for a storm.

I had the opportunity to listen to Randy Smith and Mark Lomanno of Smith Travel Research in two sessions this past week — one private session at the Lodging Industry’s think tank (the Lodging Industry Investment Council or LIIC) and in the general opening session at NYU. My commentary includes selected slides from STR, and a link to the full STR presentation can be found at the end of the article. Here is a Hospitality Attorney’s executive summary.

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
9 June 2008
Hospitality attorney on the latest outlook and sentiment of the hotel industry from New York. As a hotel lawyer, consultant, and deal maker, I am always listening and thinking. Here’s what resonated with me at the New York hotel investment conference last week.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
30 May 2008
Hospitality Attorneys on green hotel development. We have a rich library of articles on green hotel development here at www.HotelLawBlog.com. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! Here is the presentation from Gary Golla of SERA.

Gary Golla is an Architect and Associate with SERA Architects in Portland, Oregon. SERA is a 90-person employee-owned Architecture, Planning, and Interiors firm with a special focus on sustainable design and development. Gary has 14 years of experience in architecture, much of it focused on hospitality design. His portfolio includes over 2,000 built guestrooms ranging from a 900-room convention center hotel to a 50-room ski resort. Gary is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional and has several LEED registered projects in design and construction. Among those is a 331-room Starwood Luxury Collection Hotel and a 256-room Courtyard by Marriott, both designed with the goal of LEED Silver. Gary Golla can be reached at (503) 445-7361 or garyg@serapdx.com.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
28 May 2008
Hospitality lawyer on the real world cost of going green. “Cost” is the first and biggest excuse developers give for not getting LEED certification or beyond. Yet here is an actual case study of a real world project where the client actually saved several million dollars by building to the LEED Platinum standard! In this case, the magnitude of the savings was enhanced by special credits and incentives available from the State of Oregon, but Kip Richardson says there would still have been net savings of over $1 million without Oregon’s special benefits.

How can this be? Why wouldn’t everyone build a high performance LEED-certified building if they could save money? Is this just a matter of education or of dispelling old myths left over from first generation technologies now surpassed by second and third generation technologies? Here are some insights from a true leader in the field: Kip Richardson, Director of Business Development, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects. Kip can be reached at (503) 892-7138 or kipr@amaa.com.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
27 May 2008
Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. We have a rich library of articles on green hotel development here at www.HotelLawBlog.com. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations!

Here is the complete presentation at The Hotel Developers Conference from Lynn. N. Simon, AIA, LEED AP, President, Simon & Associates, Inc. based in San Francisco, California. She has more than 18 years of experience in green building and helps clients attain LEED certification and sustainability. A California-licensed architect, Lynn has served on the Board of Directors of several building industry organizations, including the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for six years. She is a LEED® Faculty member, a LEED® Accredited Professional, and a Certified Green Building Professional. Lynn can be reached at 415-908-3757 or lynn@greenbuild.com.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
26 May 2008
Hotel Lawyer. On Thursday, June 5, 2008, The California Hotel & Lodging Association (CH&LA) partners with the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) to bring its membership a regional conference and trade show, the Southern California Hotel & Lodging Conference.

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Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
25 May 2008
Going “Beyond LEED” in green hotel development. What do hospitality attorneys know about green hotel development, much less going “Beyond LEED”? Here at www.HotelLawBlog.com we have a rich library of articles on green hotel development. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations!

Here is the full presentation from The Hotel Developers Conference 2008 of Kip Richardson, Director of Business Development, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects — WITH speaker notes. Kip is truly one of our “go-to” resources for green hotel development. His presentation talks about LEED — the de facto green standard, but then goes beyond those standards into an exciting exciting new arena of Sustainable Design including current successes and development on mimicking nature. Kip Richardson, Director of Business Development, Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects. Kip can be reached at (503) 892-7138 or kipr@amaa.com.

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Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
21 May 2008
Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. Here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, we have a rich library of articles on green hotel development. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them here for your benefit. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! Here is Stefan Mühle’s slideshow on two successful case studies of developing and converting LEED-certified hotels.

CONTINUE READING →

Published on:

Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com
20 May 2008
Hospitality Lawyer on green hotel development. Here at www.HotelLawBlog.com, we have a rich library of articles on green hotel development. (Just go to the blog, search down the right hand side for “Topics” and then click on “Green Hotels.”). But as we now publish the DVDs from our recent conference on green hotels — which are free to all conference attendees — we thought many of our readers would like to see the major PowerPoint presentations from our high-powered speakers, so we have published them for your benefit, or will publish them here shortly. You will not want to miss this series of important presentations! Here is Howard Wolff’s slide show on Demystifying LEED.

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