Visa and Mastercard, along with a number of banks, have agreed to pay $6.2 billion to settle a lawsuit over merchant fees.

China's travel market is fast-growing enough that it could support a competitor to current leader Ctrip. That day may arrive soon, too, given that Meituan-Dianping is showing surprising traction in hotel booking.

LaSalle Investment Management, a subsidiary of JLL, has bought a 150-room budget hotel in London for £40 million from a syndicate of private investors.

As a borrower, your goal should be to understand how your lender thinks. With hotel financing more than with other commercial real estate types, it pays to spend time making sense of how your hotel will be perceived. Given that we are late in the financing cycle, one might think that everything is financeable, but that’s not the case. Even if it were, better terms are always available if the lender-borrower match is arranged. Ensuring a congruent relationship is essential.

China hit back on Tuesday against new U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports, further inflaming fears of a full-bore trade war between the two countries.

Members of the Hospitality Asset Managers Association reveal survey sentiment that predicts continued industry growth while facing a number of challenges and opportunities.

McNeill Hotel Investors (“McNeill”) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with an investment fund managed by Almanac Realty Investors (“Almanac”), under which the fund has committed to provide up to $150 million of capital to McNeill. It is expected that the investment will allow McNeill to double the size of its portfolio through the acquisition, development, and management of select-service hotels using premium-branded flags from the major domestic franchisors located in secondary and select tertiary markets across the United States.

Now that Pebblebrook Hotel Trust will be acquiring LaSalle Hotel Properties, the company’s next move will be to reduce debt by selling as much as $1 billion in assets within six months to a year of the closing.

iProsperity Group, an Australian advisory for high-net-worth Asian investors, has sold its Park Regis Hotel in Sydney’s City Centre to the Yeh Group for $54.18 million.

A TripAdvisor reviewer has been sentenced to nine months in prison in a landmark fraud ruling by an Italian court.The owner of Promo Salento was convicted of selling fake reviews to hundreds of hospitality businesses across Italy in order to raise their profile on the website. He was also ordered to pay EUR8,000 (PS7,100).The court in Lecce said writing fake reviews under a false identity was a crime under Italian law.

According to Hospitality Technology’s 2018 Customer Engagement Technology Study, 65% of guests say they are willing to pay higher rates and are more likely to return to a hotel that offers access to the technology they deem important. Guests’ technology demands for 2019 include having a hotel mobile app with a variety of features, the ability to check-in and out from a mobile device, and high-tech features available in guestrooms. However, travelers aren’t the only people demanding better hotel technology.

The National Labor Relations Board has proposed a rule to change its joint-employer standard. With this change, an employer may be found to be a joint-employer of another employer’s employees only if it possesses and exercises substantial, direct and immediate control over the essential terms and conditions of employment and has done so in a manner that is not limited and routine. Indirect influence and contractual reservations of authority would no longer be sufficient to establish a joint-employer relationship.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) gathered for their two-day 2018 Legislative Action Summit (LAS) in early September as nearly 400 hoteliers from across the country met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Ad fraud runs rampant in our advertising ecosystem, but the good news is there is growing momentum to tackle it at a systemic level. While they're a great start, we need more solid initiatives and participation across the ad chain landscape to really crack the problem. Here are 5 questions you can start asking to help prevent it.

In taking the temperature of the current business climate, members of the Hospitality Asset Managers Association recorded a positive outlook among hotel asset managers for the near future, shadowed by rising uncertainty as 2019 approaches.

"It started in 2014 when we were looking at a way to relieve the pain that many departments were feeling around reconciliation of the hotel direct bill process," said state of California business partnership and travel manager Bill Amaral. "We were in the middle of a procurement for travel payment, and virtual card rose to the top as a solution."

Hospitality asset managers have a positive outlook for the near future, with more than 60% forecasting that seven to 18 months remain in the current RevPAR growth cycle. More than 90% see rising labor costs as an issue.

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust plans to sell off nearly $1 billion in assets as it nears an official merger with LaSalle Hotel Properties in a strategic move to reduce debt as a newly combined company. Prior to closing the merger, $750 million of property sales are expected to be completed—Park Central New York, WestHouse New York and Park Central San Francisco and more property sales will occur in the months ahead.

The 10-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy reminds us that travel was ravaged along with other industries in the ensuing global recession. How the industry coped and rebounded is instructive for the next downturn.

The timeshare industry, the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) and ARDA Resort Owners’ Coalition (ARDA‐ROC), have united to stop the misconduct of those deceiving timeshare owners into paying for illusory timeshare exit services through fraudulent means. Recently, the Supreme Court of Tennessee disbarred attorney Judson Wheeler Phillips, founder of the Castle Law Group, on a myriad of charges relating to consumer fraud complaints.

As Soho House considers plans to go public, there's a lot of competition on the horizon at every turn. This, plus the inevitable struggle to balance aggressive growth versus exclusivity, and a less-than-stellar customer experience presents some problems on the horizon.

Hoteliers from the American Hotel & Lodging Association and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association will meet with Congress during their Legislative Action Summit to discuss issues facing the industry.

Today, HYP3R announced $17M Series A funding to continue innovating location-based marketing for brands in travel, retail, and entertainment. We did a Q&A with CEO & Cofounder Carlos Garcia about the news, his background, the company, and what lies ahead. This is part of our martech company of the week series.

In Scotland, the Edinburgh city council has called for a license limiting Airbnb rentals to 45 nights per year, in addition to a levy on tourists of £1 per person per night.

Consolidation in the hospitality industry continues, as does the selling of real estate assets.

Dallas-based Hall Structured Finance closed a new construction loan totaling $53 million to finance the expansion, redevelopment, flagging and rebranding of the existing 32-room CopperWynd Resort into the boutique Autograph Scottsdale Resort. Upon completion, the property will be a 177-room luxury resort flagged as part of the Marriott Autograph Collection. Bill Hinz is redeveloping the resort, which is planned to open by Q4 2019.