Key issues
PKF revises hotel revenue forecast upward
March 28, 2012March 21, 2012
Travel Weekly
PKF Hospitality Research boosted its revenue forecast for U.S. hotels this year, and said the industry is partway through the longest growth period for occupancy rates on record.
U.S. revenue per available room (RevPAR) will rise 5.8% this year primarily on a 4.1% increase in average room rate, PKF said. The research firm boosted its forecast from January’s estimate of a 5.4% RevPAR increase.
PKF said said U.S. RevPAR rose 8.2% in 2011.
Occupancy will increase every year through 2015, making the six-year string of occupancy gains that started in 2010 the longest on record. With room supply growing at less than 1% per year, U.S. room rates will rise at least 4% a year through 2014, according to PKF.
Meanwhile, Expedia’s Hotels.com division said this week that North America room rates rose 5% last year.
Hotels.com also said that the most popular U.S. destination for overseas tourists last year was New York, followed by Las Vegas, Orlando, Miami and Los Angeles.
New York, along with Honolulu, New Orleans and San Francisco, had at least a 10% increase in daily room rate last year, according to Hotels.com.
Feds allow 60-day extension on pool-lift compliance
March 19, 2012March 16, 2012
By Todd Sperry and Mike M. Ahlers, CNN
Washington (CNN) — Your hotel, health club and neighborhood pool can remain open this weekend without fear of violating the law.
The Justice Department said Thursday it is delaying for 60 days a new law that requires all public pools to install “lifts” or provide other means to make pools accessible to disabled individuals.
The law was passed in 2010 and was scheduled to take effect Thursday. But in recent months, there has been widespread confusion about what sort of pools are required to …
UPDATE: DOJ extends pool act at least 60 days
March 19, 2012UPDATED 8 p.m., 15 March:
On the day it was to go into effect, the White House issued a 60-day extension that will push the compliance date for the pool lift requirement under the Americans with Disabilities Act to 15 May, according to a news release from the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
DOJ will also publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with a 15-day comment period on a possible six-month extension in order to allow additional time to address misunderstandings regarding compliance with these ADA requirements.
This major shift in response is a result of work by the American Hotel & Lodging …
Deadline for hotel pools to be ADA-compliant extended
March 19, 2012By Barbara De Lollis, USA TODAY
UPDATE, March 15, 6:13 pm: The U.S. Justice Department will grant the hotel industry at least a 60-day extension for complying with a new rule aimed at making existing hotel pools compliant with the 22-year-old Americans With Disabilities Act.
It’s a decision that the hotel industry lobbied hard for at the 11th hour, as a number of hotel owners and managers suggested they might close their pools or fill in their whirlpools due to the uncertainty the new rules created.
The about-face from the federal government means that the rules for making existing hotel pools accessible to …
DOJ Rejects AH&LA Pool Lift Requests
March 19, 2012Posted 3/13/2012 -
WASHINGTON, DC–The U.S. Department of Justice has declined to revisit its regulations requiring public swimming pools to have lifts.
The DOJ, furthermore, declined to extend its Mar. 15th deadline for lodging facilities and other providers of public accommodations to comply with the regulations.
In response, the American Hotel & Lodging Association plans to continue lobbying Congress on the industry’s behalf, among other steps. The lobbying efforts have already generated numerous letters and calls from members of Congress requesting a reasonable interpretation of the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act regulations.
