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1. US, Iran agree to two-week ceasefire
The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire Tuesday, the New York Times reports. The agreement, which was brokered by Pakistan, came just hours before U.S. President Donald Trump's deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, in which he threatened the country's "whole civilization."
Both the U.S. and Iran have claimed victory in the agreement, the newspaper reports. The two sides will continue to negotiate peace conditions over the next couple of weeks.
The Strait of Hormuz will remain open during those negotiations, which is a welcome sign for oil prices. The price of Brent crude oil went down 15% on Wednesday to $95 a barrel.
2. Aviation industry unlikely to see immediate relief from deal
The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is a step in the right direction in regard to the flow of oil, but it may take months for the process to return to normalcy. This will continue to affect the aviation industry, leading to airlines continuing to rate hikes and cut flights, Reuters reports.
Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association, said jet fuel costs are likely to remain elevated compared to crude oil prices due to the impact on refineries in the Middle East.
"If [the Strait of Hormuz] were to reopen and remain open, I think it will still take a period of months to get back to where supply needs to be given the disruption to the refining capacity in the Middle East," Walsh said.
3. Vietnam poised for sustained hotel growth
Hotel performance in Vietnam has been successful recently, and Jesper Palmqvist, STR's area director for Asia-Pacific, thinks the market can sustain this moving forward.
"The amount of money that is available to fix things up in terms of roads and airports and that infrastructure is quite extraordinary," he said. "And with that, we've had this massive pipeline of hotels and retail and other things, as well. So it [will be] really interesting to see when you build all that up."
4. Domes Resorts acquires majority stake in Casa Collective
Greek owner Domes Resorts acquired London-based hotel firm Casa Collective and its hotel portfolio from Goldman Sachs for an undisclosed price, CoStar News Hotels' Terence Baker reports.
Casa Collective has 1,398 hotel rooms in total, according to CoStar data. Its portfolio includes adults-only brands such as Casa Cook Hotels, Cook's Club and XIA.
"The partnership is intended to support the continued expansion of the platform through franchise, management and strategic development collaborations across leisure destinations and gateway cities worldwide," Domes Resorts said in a news release.
5. Key labor metric hits half-century low
The U.S. labor-force participation rate, which is the share of the working-age population that is either working or looking for work, was at 61.9% in March, the lowest level outside of the COVID-19 pandemic since 1977, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“A lower labor force participation rate means slower long-run economic growth,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.
There have been more early retirements among workers 55 and older, which contributes to the declining number. For this demographic, "the labor-force participation rate ... has fallen from 40.2% in January 2020 to 37.2% last month, the lowest level in more than 20 years," the news outlet reports.