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1. Hilton Launches New Economy Brand, Spark
HNN's Stephanie Ricca reports officials with Hilton have announced the company's 19th brand: Spark by Hilton. The economy brand aims to take advantage of the massive wave of leisure travel in lower-rated segments over the past three years and will launch with 100 deals in place.
“The pandemic era exposed the fact that no matter your price point, people want to travel and will travel,” said Bill Duncan, global category head for focused service and all suites brands for Hilton. “That opened our eyes up to the segment.”
The brand will grow via conversions from other brands with a target room count between 80 and 120. Conversions will require full rooms, lobby and exterior renovations.
2. FAA Outage Causes Travel Gridlock Across US
A Federal Aviation Administration system failure grounded all flights across the U.S. for a period of hours early this morning, with more than 4,500 flights within, into or out of the country being delayed, the New York Times reports. The FAA lifted the order grounding all flights shortly before 9 a.m., noting "normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S."
The problem apparently occurred with a system designed to "send real-time safety alerts to pilots" called Notice to Air Mission or NOTAM. President Biden has called for an investigation on the cause of the outage.
3. Worries of White-Collar Recession Abound as Goldman Plans Layoffs
More than 3,000 employees at Goldman Sachs are expected to lose their jobs today, becoming the latest in a string of high-profile layoffs across the financial and tech sectors, Reuters reports.
The steady drumbeat of layoffs recently, along with the types of jobs they've affected, has many economists opining whether the economy is facing a "white-collar recession," the Wall Street Journal reports.
4. New Russian Oil Sanctions Expected
U.S. and European officials are pursuing a new wave of sanctions on Russia that could be announced soon and aim to cap how much Russia can charge for oil as Russia's war on Ukraine rages on, the Wall Street Journal reports.
"In meetings across Europe this week, Treasury officials are discussing the details of the coming sanctions on Russian oil products, which are set to go into effect on Feb. 5," the newspaper reports. "The penalties will set two price limits on Russian refined products: one on high-value exports such as diesel and another on low-value ones such as fuel oil, according to people familiar with the plans."
5. REIT DiamondRock Announces Preliminary Numbers
DiamondRock Hospitality, a Maryland-based hotel real estate investment trust, announced preliminary numbers for the fourth quarter of 2022 this morning, noting the company saw revenues increase 27.3% year over year in November and 10.5% in December, HNN's Dana Miller reports.
President, CEO and director Mark Brugger said in a statement that the company "set new records in 2022 with total owned revenue exceeding $1 billion for the first time in the company's history."