IHG just signed a 195-key Crowne Plaza in Vienna with a Pritzker Prize architect and a "blended traveler" pitch that sounds gorgeous on paper. Whether the brand can deliver that promise with real staffing in a real building is the question the press release politely declines to answer.
Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale kept its Michelin star and Michelin Guide nod for the second straight year. The part nobody's celebrating is that the market lost 3.2% of its hospitality workforce while approving 2,800 new luxury rooms... and those numbers are heading in opposite directions.
RLJ Lodging Trust pushed its next debt maturity to 2029 with a $500M refinancing package. The balance sheet looks cleaner. The operations tell a different story.
New York City wants to raise property taxes nearly 10% on an industry already drowning in regulatory costs, union labor at $40 an hour, and operating expenses growing four times faster than revenue. At some point, the math stops working... and we're getting close.
