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1. World Cup Travelers Book More Than 90k Nightly Rooms
With a combination of hotel rooms, tents, apartments, villas and portacabins, travelers to the FIFA World Cup in Qatar have booked more than 90,000 rooms on the peak days of the upcoming soccer tournament, Reuters reports.
"For $200 a night, fans can rent one of 6,000 brightly-painted aluminum portacabins, arranged in long, straight rows," the news agency reports. "There is a temporary supermarket, outdoor screens to watch games and AstroTurf to keep the dust down."
The Washington Post reported a large portion of those accommodations will be at a 6,000-cabin village in an isolated lot near Doha International Airport and Hamad International Airport, a 40-minute commute away from stadium sites. The village will be managed by French hotel firm Accor.
2. Inflation Slows but Still Hits 7.7%
The latest U.S. Department of Labor data shows the consumer price index has increased 7.7% year over year through the end of October, marking the smallest increase in the past 12 months, The Wall Street Journal reports. The CPI was up just 0.4% from September to October.
The core CPI, a figure that excludes energy and food prices, rose 6.3% year over year in October, down from the 6.6% increase in September
It is still unclear what this ultimately means in terms of monetary policy, with the newspaper reporting the latest increase "could keep Federal Reserve officials on track to approve a half-percentage-point interest-rate increase next month and to pencil in slightly higher rates next year than they had anticipated previously."
3. Hoteliers Sort Through Messiness of Hotel Operations on Next Gen Podcast
On the latest podcast episode of Next Gen in Lodging, Reading Country Club's Kyle Allison and Reimagine Hospitality's Loren Brown discuss how they — and the people close to them — weathered the storm in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic "in the trenches" of the industry.
"I felt like, when the industry was in its greatest crisis of recorded history, should I just leave and abandon after it's blessed me with so much, given me so many things?" Allison said. "I've had so much fun doing this. The industry has given me this abundant life, and I'm just going to leave when the going gets tough?"
4. Halloween Pushes Down US Hotel Performance
CoStar's hospitality analytics firm STR reported Halloween pushed down hotel demand for the week ending Nov. 5, although rate increases were still enough to push revenue performance over 2019 levels.
Occupancy for the week hit 62.4%, down 9.2% compared to the same week in 2019. An 11.4% increase in average daily rate to $147.48 was enough to drive revenue per available room to a marginal increase, up 1.1% to $91.99.
Not a single market among the top 25 saw demand increase for the week compared to 2019, although Tampa was the closest to remaining flat — down just 1% to 72.4%.
5. Noble Signs Development Deal for 9 WoodSpring Hotels
Choice Hotels International and Atlanta-based Noble Investment Group have signed a deal to develop nine WoodSpring Suites extended-stay hotels in Georgia and South Carolina, HNN's Trevor Simpson reports.
"Noble continues to add substantial scale to our extended-stay travel and hospitality platform," Ben Brunt, Noble's chief investment officer, said in a news release announcing the deal. "WoodSpring Suites has an outstanding track record of high performance across economic cycles, and we are pleased to welcome these new investments into our portfolio."