PMZ Realty Capital LLC, a boutique real estate investment banking firm, has secured the first ever CMBS loan for Tru by Hilton property. PMZ Realty Capital specializes in hotel real estate investment banking nationwide, with an expertise in sourcing capital.

Workplace retaliation claims have nearly tripled in frequency over the past decade and now are one of the most frequent claims filed in employment-related lawsuits and administrative charges. Not only are they on the rise statistically, they also are one of the most difficult claims to defend against.

Chinese foreign direct investment in the United States declined significantly to $4.8 billion in 2018—an 84% decrease from the previous year, according to analysts at Rhodium Group.

In a show of goodwill to thousands of workers affected by the government shutdown, the Hotel Association of New York City announced it will provide free hotel rooms to furloughed federal workers who need to travel to New York City for personal emergencies during the shutdown.

According to the second annual Hotel Investment Forecast from the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference, close to $30 billion worth of hotel-construction contracts will be awarded in the Middle East and North Africa between now and 2023.

Back in the mid-2000s, Marilyn Cox saw the writing on the wall while working in residential real estate in Atlanta. She noticed that some deals weren’t closing and, sure enough, that trend soon moved to the commercial side.

Investors snapped up $1.8 billion in hotel real estate transactions over the course of 2018, according to Colliers International’s Hotels Sales Analysis Report for the year, the company announced today.

Tourism revenue accounts for a vast majority of Bali's income, but the crowds take a toll on its resources and infrastructure. Now the provincial government will charge a toll of its own: a $10 tax on foreign visitors to help defray the impact.

Braemar Hotels & Resorts closed on the acquisition of The Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe, construction financing was secured for a massive mixed-use development in California, and there’s more.

American Express' corporate card business continued its growth in the fourth quarter of 2018. The Global Commercial Services division, which operates Amex's corporate card programs, had $127 billion in card-billed business, up 9 percent over the final quarter of 2017 on a foreign currency-adjusted basis, according to Amex's latest earnings report. Meanwhile, corporate cards in force reached 14.5 billion, up 4 percent over the previous year.

Carol C. Lumpkin and Stephanie N. Moot, partners at the Miami office of K&L Gates, advise businesses with websites to take the following steps to ensure their awareness of and adherence to the laws that pertain to their website accessibility.

The global travel retail market size is expected to reach USD 128.80 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The market is projected to expand at a strong CAGR of 8.7% over the forecast years. Rapidly expanding retail and travel and tourism industry along with increasing per capita income levels is expected to drive the market growth. Different retail channels help in improving the retail experience of the passengers while contributing to economic growth.

A few years ago, I made the decision to leave a big multinational company and join a privately held mid-sized company. I joined as the CFO with expanded responsibilities that included overseeing HR and IT. One of the first initiatives I undertook was to understand the company’s IT infrastructure. I knew that if we wanted to grow rapidly and support the owner’s vision of tripling the size of the business in five years, we had to have the right IT infrastructure to support the growth.

Driftwood Acquisitions and Development (DAD) – a privately held firm specializing in the acquisition, repositioning and investment syndication of high-quality hotel assets – announced today that it sold the SpringHill Suites Altamonte Springs, a Marriott-branded, 90-key hotel located 10 miles north of Orlando.

The Diplomat Beach Resort Hollywood Curio Collection by Hilton, owned by a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, has been put on the block and could fetch as much as $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Thayer Lodging Group, the Brookfield subsidiary, has tapped Newmark Knight Frank and Hodges Ward Elliott to market the 1,000-room resort in Hollywood, South Florida, according to one of the people, who requested anonymity.

Hotel managers, often alongside their asset managers, have engaged in many initiatives to improve operating efficiencies and reduce costs in recent years. With emphasis on revenue growth and maintaining assets in competitive condition, areas such as the administrative and general department have become an area of focus for savings because roughly 50 percent of the operating expenses of a hotel operation are labor or labor-related.

Value-added services are no longer automatically selected on China’s online travel platforms. A major consumer complaint against online travel agencies was upselling on their platforms - a practice where OTAs sign up customers for additional services like travel insurance unless they manually uncheck the options before purchasing. Now, it seems that the law is falling on the side of consumers as extra services can no longer be checked as a default on e-commerce sites.

In June, new restrictions will limit the ability of homeowners in Ireland to rent their homes on sharing platforms like Airbnb, but this isn't stopping people from advertising their houses and apartments as demand grows, according to a new report from home-sharing tracking service AirDNA.

The Tourism Business Council of Yucatan is predicting an increase in hotel investment and development for the Mexican cities of Mérida, Chichén Itzá and Valladolid.

Hotel Business has been tracking recent sales, acquisitions and other transactions. Here’s more on the recent deals.

The signing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) into law in December 2017 marked the arrival of new opportunities and challenges for taxpayers in the United States, and the hospitality industry has been among the fields working to survey and navigate this previously unexplored tax landscape.

Amidst the dozens of responsibilities that come with owning or managing a restaurant is the relationship between your restaurant and liquor licensing laws. Given that most restaurants try to make alcohol sales account for roughly 30 percent of their revenue, liquor licensing is crucial to the success of a new restaurant. An awareness of the unique challenges surrounding the acquisition of a liquor license should be on the list of priorities for any new restaurateur.

Nezasa, a provider of booking tools for travel agents, and Halan, an Egyptian ride-hailing service for tuk-tuks and motorcycles, have recently received funding.

MGM Resorts' CEO says it clearly: We're in the last stages of economic expansion this cycle. Hotel chains will begin to prepare themselves for what comes next.

Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, a real estate company founded in 2009 as a joint venture between Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and Leucadia National Corporation, raised $24 million in financing for the Holiday Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport North.

The BTN Group wrote about 35 acquisitions in 2018, led by Wyndham's $1.95 billion acquisition of La Quinta. The following acquisitions either have closed or are pending heading into the new year.