Starwood Capital Group LLC agreed to buy the InTown Suites extended-stay brand from a Kimco Realty Corporation venture for $735 million, including debt, according to a Bloomberg report.
The deal with the Starwood Distressed Opportunity Fund IX is expected to be completed in the first half of 2013, New Hyde Park, New York-based Kimco said in a statement today. The sale price includes about $617 million of existing debt.
Kimco owns a 75% interest in InTown Hospitality Investors LP, the venture that owns InTown Suites. The portfolio comprises 138 extended-stay properties predominantly in the southern U.S., with concentrations in Texas, Georgia and Florida.
According to research from eMarketer, time spent using mobile devices for activities such as Internet and app use, gaming, music and more has more than doubled in the last two years.
This year, the amount of time U.S. consumers spent using mobile devices—excluding talk time—will grow 51.9% to an average 82 minutes per day, up from just 34 minutes in 2010, eMarketer estimates.
Mobile is growing quickly from a small base—and growth in time spent is also being boosted by fast uptake of smartphones and tablets, which still have penetrated only a minority of all consumers. As more U.S. consumers continue to acquire these devices and owners shift more of their digital activities to mobile and portable devices, mobile is grabbing an ever-greater share of time with all media—potentially at the expense of faster online growth, according to the report.
Mitigating risk and litigious action in the ever-evolving social-media space requires solid guidelines and even stronger policies from hoteliers, according to experts.
Although a powerful marketing tool for hoteliers, employers need to be aware of the pitfalls of employees' social-media activity—both on private and company-sponsored pages.
“You’ve got to take certain steps in order to explain what’s appropriate and what’s not by enacting a social-media policy,” Ed Harold, a partner at Fisher & Phillips, said. “We recommend that all employers adopt social-media policies, because if you don’t in advance notify your employers of what’s appropriate or inappropriate behavior, later on it’s harder to hold them accountable for behavior you didn’t like.”
A social-media policy can exist as a set of guidelines in an employee handbook, he added.
However, Peter Fischer, an attorney of Stokes Roberts & Wagner, said it’s best to have a contract in place that employees must sign.
Premier Inn continued to outperform competitors during the first half of its fiscal year ending 30 August, according to the company’s results released Tuesday. The U.K. economy brand reported growth in revenue per available room of 2.4% compared to a decline of 3.6% for the midscale and economy chain scales.
Additionally, the chain grew its room capacity by 9.8% in the U.K. and Ireland while delivering total occupancy of 79%.
Expanding the brand’s footprint in London continues to remain a focus. The company has added nine hotels comprising 1,576 rooms to the city during the past 12 months and now has 7,700 rooms. London represents 33% of Premier Inn’s committed pipeline.
Premier Inn now has 49,020 in its portfolio, with a secured pipeline of more than 11,000 rooms.
A recent survey conducted by World Independent Hotel Promotion of 20,000 hotel guests found that most people use insight from friends and family to obtain information about hotels.
The breakdown was as follows:
- Friends and family: 22.9%
- Online travel agencies: 20.7%
- TripAdvisor: 18.2%
- Other: 17%
- Repeat guests: 12.3%
- Travel agents: 3.1%
- Magazine: 2%
- Facebook: 1.6%
- Blog: 1.5%
- Guide: 0.5%
- Twitter: 0.2%
Compiled by Stephanie Wharton.