Front Desk

• Despite lodging chill, flurry of luxury hotels opening at winter resorts
  Despite the lodging downturn, no fewer than eight luxury hotels are opening at winter resorts throughout the West this season, and another five will be completed in the 2010-2011 season. In Park City, Utah, the St. Regis Deer Crest Resort is to open this week, and the plush Dakota Mountain Lodge will be open this season. Other hotels are planned in California, Utah, Colorado and western Canada. The Dallas Morning News (11/1)

Business Update

• Jury awards $20M to Texas cities for online hotel booking taxes
  A federal jury in San Antonio, Texas, has awarded $20 million to Texas cities after finding that online booking services such as Travelocity, Expedia and Priceline.com failed to pay proper occupancy taxes over several years. The award will be divided according to the number of hotel rooms the Web sites sold in each of the state's 170 cities, with San Antonio and Dallas expected to be the largest recipients of the award. The Dallas Morning News (11/1)

• Architects: Space hotel on track to open by 2012
  Despite skepticism from critics, architects building the first hotel in space say the hotel should begin to accept its first guests in 2012. A three-night stay at The Galactic Suite Space Resort will run about $4.4 million, which will include eight weeks of training on a tropical island. During the three-day stay, guests will see the sun rise 15 times a day as they travel around the world every 80 minutes. Reuters (11/1)

• Las Vegas Sands to raise $2.5B in Hong Kong IPO
  Las Vegas Sands Corp. plans to raise about $2.5 billion in an initial public offering of its Macau unit on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Sands China holds the second-largest market share in Macau after billionaire Stanley Ho's SJM Holdings Ltd. Bloomberg (11/2)

Market Trends

• Las Vegas hotels embrace social-media marketing
  Several Las Vegas hotels have embraced social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with customers. Caesars Palace recently offered a discount package to Facebook and Twitter users that included offers on free food, drink and giveaways. "This is part of how people live today -- spending hours on Facebook," said George Maloof, owner of the Palms hotel-casino. Las Vegas Sun (10/26)

• Downturn said to put New York W Hotel loan at risk of default
  A $115 million loan backed by the W New York Union Square hotel in Manhattan is said to be at a moderate risk of default because of a weak financial performance amid the lodging downturn, according to credit rating firm Realpoint LLC. The borrowers of the loan are said to be up to date with their payments, however, and the value of the property remains higher than the debt. Bloomberg (10/30)

• Clean, well-lighted room among basic features of a good hotel
  In order to pass one columnist's muster in qualifying as a good hotel, rooms need to have certain basics. They include being clean and having enough light or lamps, having a good desk with electrical outlets on top, having free Internet access, having plenty of counter space in the bathroom and having a comfortable mattress. The Philadelphia Inquirer (10/19)

Hot Topics

Top five news stories selected by AH&LA SmartBrief readers in the past week.

• Manhattan hotel rate comparison shows Four Seasons a no-haggle zone (The New York Times)

• Blackstone tries to restructure Hilton's $20 billion debt (The Wall Street Journal)

• Third-quarter occupancies, room revenue decline in U.S. (Travel Weekly)

• Choice Hotels no longer an option on Expedia (Travel Weekly)

• Legoland California owner to propose hotel (San Diego Union-Tribune)

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

Featured Content

Best Practices

• Prune from the top to help all company levels flourish
  Pruning back plants in order to stimulate their growth offers a good lesson for the corporate setting, this article says. Leaders who keep tight control over a company's resources can wind up stunting the company's growth and limiting the potential of its workers, whereas a healthy pruning of power at the top of an organization can provide more accountability on down the chain. Forbes (10/26)

Development

• Alabama casino adds hotel to world's largest bingo facility
  The owner of the VictoryLand casino in Shorter, Ala., has added a 300-room luxury hotel to attract overnight visitors. "The Oasis will definitely make VictoryLand an entertainment destination point," said owner Milton McGregor. Although the casino does not have table games, it boasts 6,400 electronic bingo machines and is the largest bingo facility in the world. The Birmingham News (Ala.) (11/1)

• Delray Beach welcomes first luxury boutique hotel
  Delray Beach, Fla., got its first luxury boutique hotel over the weekend with the opening of the 162-room Seagate Hotel & Spa. The project, which has been three years in development, will feature an 8,000-square-foot spa and access to the ocean, as well as to the nearby Seagate Beach Club. The Palm Beach Post (Fla.) (11/1)

AH&LA News

• Learn the ins and outs of social media
  On AH&LA's revised social-media section, anyone can easily learn how to use and manage Facebook, Twitter, blogs, RSS feeds and traveler-generated content. Through the expertise of AH&LA allied member TIG Global, we've created a portal for helping you execute a viable social-media strategy to capture more market share. And check out executive blogs while you're there.

• H1N1 Influenza Management for Hotels manual released
  Make sure your property is prepared to handle employee absenteeism, sick guests, increased sanitation efforts and the many other challenges H1N1 is predicted to bring to our industry. AH&LA's new 25-page guide can help answer many of your questions about the flu in the workplace. Visit www.ahla.com/flu for updates throughout the season, as well as additional resources and guidelines.

Editor's Note

• Poll: How has your hotel taken steps to mitigate H1N1 risks?
  Look out for the AH&LA SmartBrief Year-End Report on Dec. 8 and 15. The results of this poll will appear in Part 2 on Dec. 15.

	We've made hand sanitizer more available.
	We've refined absenteeism policy.
	We've allowed for more telecommuting.
	We've take steps in other ways.
	We've done nothing differently.

SmartQuote

Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory." --George S. Patton Jr., World War II general