Editor's Note: Some linked articles may be behind subscription paywalls.
1. Tube strikes in London disrupt city
Thousands of London commuters are affected by an ongoing strike from members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union who are advocating for better pay and working conditions. The strike is expected to cause disruption through Friday morning, according to the BBC citing Transport for London.
The workers were offered a 3.4% pay raise but did not meet the union's request for a cut to the 35-hour working week, which members requested "in order to help reduce fatigue and the ill-health effects of long-term shift work."
2. Hotel group rebrands to represent expanded company
Oravel Stays Limited, the parent company of G6 Hospitality and OYO, is rebranding to Prism, according to a news release. The company includes brands such as OYO, Motel 6, Townhouse, Sunday and Palette, and it also operated several brands in the vacation homes segment. The new name came from a global public naming competition that saw over 6,000 submissions and is intended to represent the organizations tech-focused future, according to a news release from the company.
“The transition to Prism marks the establishment of a future-ready corporate architecture designed to align our expanding portfolio with our long-term vision,” said Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO of PRISM, in the release.
Last year, the company acquired G6 Hospitality from Blackstone Real Estate in a $525 million all-cash transaction. Per the release, Prism has added more than150 hotels to its OYO U.S. portfolio in the first half of 2025 with another 150 expected by the end of the year.
3. Hoteliers grapple with challenged hotel performance
This year, the hospitality industry has seen a series of headwinds and macroeconomic challenges that's boiling over for hotel revenue managers, reported CoStar News' Trevor Simpson from a recent roundtable in Nashville.
"In my experience, everybody's concerned, like, literally everybody's concerned," said Leah McFarland, senior vice president of revenue strategy at Crestline Hotels & Resorts. "We are continuing to talk about the necessity of driving [average daily rate] ... . And then we're continuing to talk about how ADR is not there because demand is not there."
The group of revenue managers discussed each segment's performances and identified challenges.
4. Host offloads Washington Marriott in $128M deal
California-based T2 Hospitality acquired the Washington Marriott at Metro Center from Host Hotels & Resorts subsidiary HMC Retirement Properties LP in a $127.99 million deal, reported Bisnow.
The hotel, one of the largest in the region, is located at 775 12th St. NW in downtown Washington, D.C., and has 459 keys and over 13,000 square feet of meeting space, according to CoStar. The acquisition was by M8 DEV DC LLC, which is tied to T2 Hospitality. It last sold for $46.5 million in late June 1994.
5. Travelers see opportunity in shoulder season
Move over summer travel, fall is ready to get its share of the tourism action. The New York Times' Frugal Traveler columnist writes that destinations considered to be desirable in the summer might see more visitors this shoulder season.
"Booking.com reported notable growth in searches for traditional beach trips such as the Hamptons — up 78% year-over-year in September and 45 percent in October — and Cape Cod," reads the article. "Searches for rooms in Dublin are up 35% in the fall over summer, according to Expedia, and Virtuoso, a consortium of high-end travel agencies, says that fall bookings have climbed 30% this year."
Fairmont hotels occupancy in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean has nearly doubled since 2019 in the fall and spring seasons, and Omer Acar, CEO of Raffles and Fairmont hotels and resorts, said “guests [are] seeking to travel based on their passions as opposed to seasonality.”