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1. Sri Lanka repeals 1954 law banning hotel waitresses at night
The government of Sri Lanka has annulled a 71-year-old law that banned women from waiting tables after 10 p.m., Newswire report. The law did not stop women from working after that hour in different hotel and hospitality roles.
The Shop & Office Employees (Regulation of Employment and Remuneration) Act No. 19 was passed into law on Aug. 9, 1954.
"The approved amendment will allow female employees over 18 to work night shifts as food servers in hotels with residential facilities and in restaurants, aligning their permitted hours with other roles already covered by the law," the news outlet reports.
2. Economists predict more growth, lower chance of recession in US
The latest quarterly survey of economists from the Wall Street Journal reveals experts are lowering the perceived possibility of a recession and increasing their growth expectations.
The survey showed that “economists lowered the likelihood of a recession in the next 12 months to 33%, down from 45% in April — but still higher than the panel’s 22% consensus in the January survey.”
Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, told the newspaper “the risks to the outlook remain skewed to the downside,” but many economists’ survey comments included notes about longer-term weakness.
3. Costa Rica’s Tabacón resort sells for $111 million
Business consultancy JLL has announced it has facilitated the $111 million sale of the 570-acre Tabacón Grand Spa Thermal Resort in Costa Rica, a resort close to the country’s famed Arenal volcano in the midst of tropical jungle and mineral springs. The upper-upscale, independent hotel has 105 rooms, and the deal came in at an approximate price per key of $1.06 million.
The new owner is Denver-based Pursuit Attractions & Hospitality, until the end of last year known as Viad Corp. CoStar data shows the seller to be Jaime Mikowski, the architect who rewilded former cattle pasture in the 1990s, designed and opened the hotel in 1993 and renovated it in 2012.
4. Guest psychology plays bigger role in designing hotel rooms, shared spaces
A growing trend among hotel designers is putting a higher focus on guest psychology to analyze which design choices can elicit positive responses from hotel guests, writes CoStar News Hotels’ Trevor Simpson. How designers employ this new skill does vary, he writes.
“In hospitality, what we’re trying to do in the rooms is we’re trying to match the guest expectation," said Molly Forman, interior designer at Washington, D.C.-based boutique design firm //3877. "Depending on the brand, whatever direction it goes, higher or lower, we want the guests to feel as impressed by the design as they do by the service.”
And it is not all cutting-edge thinking and glamor, added Carrie Nielsen, associate senior project designer at JCJ Architecture. She said this type of planning can sometimes be as simple as selecting the best spot in a guest room to put a light switch.
5. In the European Union, Dutch employees tend to work the longest
According to Eurostat, among the member countries of the European Union, the country where workers will work the longest number of years is The Netherlands.
The Dutch will work for an average of 43.8 years, with the average for all 27 EU nations being 37.2 years. Closely following The Netherlands are Sweden at 43 years, Denmark at 42.5 years and Estonia at 41.4 years. Working the fewest number of years are Romania at 32.7 years, Italy at 32.8 and Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece, each tied at 34.8 years.
Men on average are now working 39.2 years, with women working 35 years, but in Estonia (42.2), Sweden (42) and The Netherlands (41.8), women are working more than the average for both genders. According to Eurostat data, women in Italy are working for only an average of 28.2 years.