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1. Former Los Angeles Ace Hotel Reopens With New Model
The former Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles has reopened as the Stile Downtown Los Angeles by Kasa, the Los Angeles Times reports. The property is now operating as a mix between a hotel and a short-term rental.
San Francisco-based Kasa "offers the consistency of a major hotel chain with the convenience and character of a modern short-term rental,” AJU Continuum, the owner of the property, said in a statement to the newspaper.
Donald Wise, a hotel investment banker at Turnbull Capital Group, described this limited-service model in which guests get access codes to their rooms on their phones as "basically an Airbnb on steroids."
“You’re not going to someone’s house or a condo, but to a box that has no more or less service than an Airbnb would have,” he said.
2. Ocean Shipping Prices Rise Again
The diversion of container ships because of attacks in the Red Sea are causing backups and pushing up ocean shipping costs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Large numbers of container ships and bulk carriers are growing near Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and China as they wait for ports in Europe to work through the containers already there.
“We have not seen those $20,000 rates for a container as it was in the pandemic, but we are looking at $7,000 per box from Asia to the U.S. East Coast rates versus the normal rate of about $3,500,” said Michael Murray, who runs DeSales Trading, a threads and yarns wholesaler in Burlington, N.C. “As an importer there is nothing worse than getting stuck with inventory having inflated freight costs like what happened in 2022."
3. Conditions Right for More US Hotel Deals, JLL Exec Says
The U.S. hotel market may be in a perfect position for new deals to take off, said Zach Demuth, global head of hotels research for JLL Hotels & Hospitality, in a video interview with HNN's Stephanie Ricca. The combination of upcoming debt maturities and the rising costs of both insurance and capital expenditures may be enough of a catalyst.
"We're at a unique inflection point where [revenue per available room] is generally still relatively high, but starting to normalize in many markets," Demuth said. "While many hotels might be having record-high revenue numbers, they also are struggling from a profit perspective."
4. Barcelona To Ban Short-Term Tourist Rentals
Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni said Friday that the top tourist destination city will ban short-term apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, reports the Guardian. There are currently 10,101 apartments that have received approval to operate as short-term rentals.
“We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona’s largest problem,” Collboni said at a government event.
The issue at hand is access to affordable housing, Collboni said. The Guardian reported that the rapid increase in short-term rentals in Barcelona for tourists meant rents rose 68% in the last decade and home costs rose 38%, making the investment in housing increasingly difficult for residents.
5. AAA Projects Record July Fourth Travel
AAA projects nearly 71 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home over the Independence Day holiday week in the U.S., according to a news release. That number includes nearly 61 million people traveling by car, which is an additional 2.8 million travelers compared to last year.
This year’s number also surpasses 2019 when 55.3 million people traveled by car over the holiday week. The association anticipates 5.74 million people will fly to their Independence Day destinations, an increase of nearly 7% compared to last year and a 12% increase over 2019. Seattle, Vancouver and Anchorage are top destinations because of the popularity of Alaska cruises this time of year. Beaches in South Florida, Honolulu, Punta Cana, and Barcelona are in high demand. Historical sites in European cities such as London, Rome, Dublin, Paris and Athens are also popular.