You're a relatively small, privately-owned, well-managed hotel operating company. You manage for institutional owners, and have solidly built a core business. But you have limited distribution and don't control the assets you manage. You might even be concentrated geographically. You're concerned that if you don't gain control of the assets you manage and grow your portfolio, you'll have difficulty keeping your key management team. Worse yet, you're concerned that you'll lose market share, your revenues will decline and your profitability will be reduced. You risk watching the enterprise value that you worked so hard to build deteriorate. Not a pretty picture. What are your options? READ MORE

Hotel owners and operators have grown more sophisticated in crafting standards with which to project and then gauge the performance of their properties. As a result, these parties are also negotiating increasingly complex performance test provisions in operating agreements. What is a performance test? Essentially, a performance test sets objective criteria for minimally acceptable financial performance of a hotel and, ultimately, provides the hotel owner with the right to terminate the management contract if the operator fails to achieve the goal. Beyond these basic concepts, performance tests come in all shapes and sizes. A savvy hotel owner will always demand that the hotel management agreement contain some type of performance test. Most hotel operators accept, albeit grudgingly, that such performance standards come with the territory of management contracts. Operators are usually concerned with limiting the scope of the test as much as possible and with negotiating cure rights that protect them from loss of the management agreement. READ MORE

Are the guests of your hotel greeted by name at check in, welcomed with their favorite bottle of wine in their room, and treated to their newspaper of choice each morning? If this scenario is familiar, you are undoubtedly leveraging a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. If not, should you? CRM programs can help build and reward customer loyalty, and capture the ultimate value from every customer relationship. Hotels who effectively leverage CRM programs can realize an improvement in their bottom lines, and an increase in shareholder value. In today's competitive environment, using a CRM system is no longer a matter of choice, but an imperative. READ MORE

September 12-13, 2005, franchisees from all over the nation will march on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to celebrate "Franchise Appreciation Day" initiated by the International Franchise Association. This annual event, now in its 6th year, is held to heighten the visibility of franchising and to educate our U.S. Congress on the important role franchising plays in our nation's economy. This got me to thinking. Franchising represents about 60 percent of the hospitality industry, contributing billions of dollars in annual U.S. revenues. So why is it that we as an industry do not celebrate a national or global "Hotel Franchise Appreciation Day?" Could the answer be that hotel franchising simply isn't appreciated? With franchise fees what they are today, I have to believe that the franchisors appreciate it. Travelers certainly appreciate it - especially those reaping the rewards offered by growing brand/franchise-loyalty programs. Even national franchisee associations appreciate hotel franchising. READ MORE

Attention All Hotel Owners: Did you know that federal tax credits can be used as a financing source for a substantial rehabilitation of a hotel? If your building is a pre-1936 or historic structure, the renovation work could qualify for federal rehabilitation tax credits, representing up to 20% of qualified rehabilitation expenditures. More importantly, these rehabilitation tax credits can be transferred to an institutional investor in exchange for additional equity capital. Through the Internal Revenue Code Section 47, the federal government offers lucrative rehabilitation tax credits to encourage preservation and adaptive reuse of historic and pre-1936 buildings. Calculated as a percentage of the eligible rehabilitation expenses, federal tax law offers a 20% tax credit for substantial rehabilitations of historic buildings, and a 10% tax credit for substantial rehabilitations of non-historic, non-residential buildings built before 1936. READ MORE