An interesting graphic I came across shows the number of hotels in the U.S. by the seven largest U.S. hotel chains.

U.S. Hotels domestic supply among major U.S. Hotel Chains

• Hilton Worldwide: 3,382 hotels; 506,455 rooms.
• Marriott International: 3,110 hotels; 501,070 rooms.
• Wyndham Worldwide: 5,815 hotels; 451,755 rooms.
• Choice International: 5,081 hotels; 385,827 rooms.
• Starwood Hotels & Resorts: 495 hotels; 152,693 rooms.
• Hyatt Hotels Corporation: 354 hotels; 91,590 rooms. 
• Carlson Rezidor Hotels: 549 hotels; 59,742 rooms.

Source: STR 12-31-2012 year end data.

I’m not sure why Best Western is missing from the list?

• Best Western International: 2,165 hotels (North America); 178,518 rooms (North America). Source: Best Western. What is impressive about Best Western is 1,312 hotels in Europe.

IHG is a UK based company, although, the majority of properties are located in the USA.

• InterContinental Hotels Group: 3,555 hotels; 449,617 rooms (North and South America and Caribbean). Source: IHG Fact Sheets. IHG has 628 hotels in Europe.

Starwood and Carlson have the highest proportion of hotels outside the USA among these chains. There are roughly 500 to 600 hotels outside the USA for Hilton, Marriott, Starwood and Carlson-Rezidor. 

The high number of hotels outside the USA is one of the features I most enjoy about Best Western Rewards. The Best Western chain can put you in many places the other hotel chains can’t. And for free with points stays.

And when you are in the U.S.A. there are nearly 25,000 hotels in just the top nine chains with global points-based hotel loyalty programs.

Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group had its Country Inns & Suites global business conference at Fontainebleau in Miami Beach this week. The major announcement from the conference is a new brand identity for Country Inns & Suites and the debut of the new hotel prototype for the brand.

The new Country Inns & Suites brand logo was introduced to the public.

In 2010 Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group announced Ambition 2015, a five year global initiative to make the hotel brands of Radisson, Country Inns & Suites, Park Plaza and Park Inn recognized leaders in their market segments of the hotel industry.

In the past three years we have seen

• the introduction of a unified Club Carlson hotel loyalty program replacing the disjointed Gold Points Plus;
• the introduction of Radisson Blu in the U.S. market with Radisson Blu Aqua Chicago and the opening this past week of the second Radisson Blu Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota;
• the introduction of a Club Carlson credit card which comes with the industry leading benefit of one free night on every award stay of two or more nights.

The unveiling of a Country Inns & Suites prototype this week is another major step toward reaching the objectives of Ambition 2015. Read More…

15 of the 23 hotels rising one tier level in Ritz-Carlton Rewards hotel category reassignment May 16, 2013 are located in the USA.

Ouch!

There are 78 Ritz-Carlton hotels globally. 39 of these 78 Ritz-Carlton hotels are in the USA.

The good news is Ritz-Carlton Bahrain is dropping by one tier level from RZ2 (40,000 points per night) to RZ1 (30,000 points per night) when new Marriott Rewards hotel award category reassignments take effect May 16, 2013.

The worse news comes with the 10,000 points increase for award nights at 23 Ritz-Carlton hotels rising in hotel award reassignments.

Link to the Marriott Rewards/Ritz-Carlton Rewards announcement of 2013 tier changes.

Link to Marriott Rewards pdf of 1,300+ hotels rising in hotel award category May 16, 2013.

Historical Perspective on Ritz-Carlton Rewards Read More…

I could have probably rented our extra bedroom in Monterey for $150 per night this past weekend during the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro Am golf tournament. There are other Monterey properties renting rooms and entire houses for stays next weekend on Airbnb.com. Rentals run from $60 per night in Seaside including two Monterey Bay Aquarium ticket passes to a $239 per night luxury yacht in Monterey Bay to $1,000 per night for an entire home in the woods of Carmel Highlands.

I could rent my spare bedroom, but it would be illegal for me to sign up the room on Airbnb.com and take payment without the proper Monterey city licensing for lodging.

There are 41 Airbnb.com results for Monterey rentals next weekend. Are all these rental listings on airbnb.com compliant with local lodging retailer regulations and laws?

Airbnb.com states on its home pages there are nearly 36,000 cities globally with property listings.

How do you become a lodging host on airbnb.com?

Who can host on Airbnb?

Almost anyone can be a host! It’s free to sign up and to list your space. The listings available on the site are as diverse as the hosts who list them, so you can post airbeds in apartments, entire houses, rooms in bed-and-breakfasts, hotel rooms, tree houses in the woods, boats on the water, or enchanted castles. The list goes on and on! Find out more about our room types.

Since almost anyone can be a host, it is important to learn how to play it safe on Airbnb in our Trust & Safety Center.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/hosting/18 

Amsterdam and New York are popular locations for Airbnb and other peer-to-peer room/apartment/house/boat stay rentals.

News stories about problems associated with hosts listing properties for rent on sites like Airbnb.com came to my attention with an article about Amsterdam and Airbnb.com from website TheNextWeb.com:

Airbnb could be banned in Amsterdam: Local authorities are now hunting for illegal hotels [UPDATED] (Feb 2, 2013) – TheNextWeb.com.

The original article on TheNextWeb.com came out February 2 and was disputed by both the Amsterdam city government and airbnb.com statements. Then TheNextWeb.com published a follow-up article in response to the criticism from Amsterdam government officials.

Amsterdam doesn’t ‘ban’ AirBnB but says renting out without a permit is illegal. Do you have a permit? (Feb 7, 2013) – TheNextWeb.com.

I found the Amsterdam articles to be interesting reads. Amsterdam has 4,191 listings on Airbnb and many of these apartments are being rented illegally without proper lodging permits.

New York Times published a story in December 2012 about airbnb.com rentals in New York City causing problems for landlords and renters when neighbors complain about strangers living in the apartment buildings. The fines can be heavy.

A Warning for Hosts of Airbnb Travelers – Ron Lieber – New York Times (December 1, 2012).

For me personally, the two summers I spent 1997 and 1998 in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland living in B&B houses turned me on to hotel travel. Engaging locals is an important part of travel, yet I like the option of being able to disengage conversations and step away at my leisure without being rude. That is often not so easy when you are staying in someone else’s home with them.

Have sites like airbnb.com worked for you as a consumer or host?

Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.

Travelodge and Thriftlodge properties in Canada have joined Wyndham Rewards according to a press release yesterday. This adds 91 hotels in Canada for earning Wyndham Rewards points and grows the loyalty program portfolio to 380 Wyndham brand hotels in Canada.

There is no history given in the Wyndham news release for why Travelodge was previously not part of Wyndham Rewards. The other good news is these properties in Canada will earn 10 points per $1 for hotel stays.

15 of 16 Wyndham Hotel brands earn 10 points per dollar. Hawthorn Suites extended stay brand earns only 5 points per dollar.

• Baymont Inn & Suites
• Days Inn
• Dream
• Hawthorn Suites hotels (earns 5 points per $1)
• Howard Johnson
• Knights Inn
• Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham
• Night
• Ramada
• Super 8 (China hotels do not participate in Wyndham Rewards)
• Travelodge
• TRYP
• Wingate by Wyndham
• Wyndham Garden
• Wyndham Grand Collection
• Wyndham Hotels and Resorts

One of the great values of Wyndham Rewards is the point-to-miles exchange rate is 10 points = 4 miles for most frequent flyer program partners. This gives Wyndham Rewards the best points-to-miles exchange rate at the base level. SPG, Hyatt, Marriott and Club Carlson only exceed the miles earning rate of Wyndham Rewards when a member is a high elite level and/or exchanging a large number of points.

Now if only the 200+ Super 8 hotels in China start participating in Wyndham Rewards promotions…

Hotels in Hawaii are on my radar now with my trip coming in two weeks. I recall seeing many hotel bargains in Hawaii in their lean tourism years of 2008-09.

Hawaii is coming back strong now as a hot list tourist destination. Visitor arrivals are climbing fast with Asian tourism to Hawaii growing fastest. USA and Canada arrivals are also climbing which means hotel occupancy is up and room rates are increasing. Hawaii average room rates at $202.90 at the end of September 2012 are now second only to New York City’s $236.58.

Hawaii Hotel Flash Report Third Quarter 2012 is a 9-page pdf report showing the hotel data for the Hawaiian islands state. There are some interesting visitor statistics listed in this report created by Smith Travel Research data and Hospitality Advisors.

Hawaii Room Revenue reached $2.45 billion in first nine months of 2012. This is 14.8% more than 2011. Add in food and beverage, retail, parking and hotel fees and Hawaii hotel revenue increases to $3.62 billion. Hawaii hotels are pulling in 48% more on top of room rates through other hotel services.

Types of visitors to State of Hawaii

• Visitor arrivals in Hawaii are up 9.2% in 2012 over same time 2011.
• Honeymooners increased 12.2%
• Independent travelers increased 9.8%
• Non-convention business travelers increased 5.1%
• Japan arrivals increased 15.9%
• Other Asia countries arrivals increased 45.4%

Oahu

• Hotel room occupancy 85.6%
• Hotel average daily rate = $181.50
• arrivals from U.S. West increased 5.3%
• arrivals from Japan increased 16.2%

Maui

• Hotel room occupancy 73.3%
• Hotel average daily rate = $259.07
• Wailea area occupancy 77.4%
• Wailea area average daily rate = $388.54
• arrivals from U.S. West increased 4.8%
• arrivals from Japan increased 7.9%
• arrivals from Canada increased 4.0%

Kauai

• Hotel room occupancy 70.5%
• Hotel average daily rate = $212.23
• arrivals from U.S. West increased 6.1%
• arrivals from U.S. East increased 6.1%
• arrivals from Japan increased 17.7%
• arrivals from Canada increased 7.7%

Hawaii

• Hotel room occupancy 62.2%
• Hotel average daily rate = $190.18

Hawaii Statewide Hotel Market Segments

Luxury Hotels

• Hotel room occupancy 71.4%
• Hotel average daily rate = $421.73

Upper Upscale Hotels

• Hotel room occupancy 83.4%
• Hotel average daily rate = $224.52

Upscale Hotels

• Hotel room occupancy 72.8%
• Hotel average daily rate = $166.43

Upper Midscale Hotels

• Hotel room occupancy 80.1%
• Hotel average daily rate = $119.24

Midscale Hotels

• Hotel room occupancy 76.7%
• Hotel average daily rate = $109.55

Economy Hotels

• Hotel room occupancy 79.5%
• Hotel average daily rate = $95.27

Loyalty Traveler commentary on the numbers: Luxury hotels with an average daily rate of $421.73 are truly a market segment separated from the masses and well above the rate of upper upscale hotels at $224.52.

St. Regis, Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Waldorf-Astoria and JW Marriott resorts are raking in the big bucks in Hawaii. There is no breakdown of specific hotels but suffice to say there should be a notable difference in hotel market segments between those charging $400+ nightly and those in the $200 range.

Every hotel market segment from Upper Upscale to Midscale hotels looks like a supply and demand basis of $100 to $200+ per night.

My advice for someone thinking Hawaii vacation is to look at hotel rates before airfare. Find the low hotel room rate period and you will likely save more money for your trip compared to paying a $100 to $150 more per airline ticket. There are some good deals to be found at specific times of the year, even in the luxury hotel segment.

Starwood Preferred Guest Cash & Points is the feature I sought out when looking at Hawaii as a means to save significantly on hotel rates. Oahu and Maui had the most limited SPG Cash & Points availability. Kauai was wide open and Hawaii had frequent dates.

Starwood Hotels in Hawaii

• 3 of 11 hotels are category 6 awards (20,000 or 25,000 points per night; 80,000 to 100,000 points for 5 nights; or Cash & Points $150 + 8,000 points per night)
• 7 of 11 are category 5 awards (12,000 or 16,000 points per night; 48,000 to 64,000 points for 5 nights; or Cash & Points $90 + 4,800 points per night)
• 1 of 11 is category 4 (10,000 points per night; 40,000 points for 5 nights; or Cash & Points $60 + 4,000 points per night)

4,800 points + $90 per night is a far better deal than 12,000 points per night in Kauai for the Westin Princeville or Sheraton Kauai Resort at $300+ per night.

Hawaii Starwood Hotel Rates for February 12-15, 2013

Currently you can buy 5,000 points for $140. SPG Cash & Points allows you to book category 5 Starwood Hotels for $230 per night when many of these hotels are in the $350+ range after tax.

ALERT: Buy Starpoints at 20% discount through November 30, 2012.

Five most expensive hotel markets 2012 in USA (Smith Travel Research)

• New York $236.58; occupancy 82.4%
• Hawaii $202.90; occupancy 77.8%
• San Francisco $170.84; occupancy 81.5%
• Miami $162.71; occupancy 76.5%
• Boston $157.95; ?
• Los Angeles is #4 city in hotel occupancy at 76.9%.

These cities around the USA are expensive for hotels.

SPG Cash & Points, Priority Club Points & Cash, HHonors Points & Money are all ways to cut the expense of hotel stays in Hawaii and elsewhere for an even better deal than standard reward nights when hotel rates are too high for your budget. Marriott and SPG also offer 5th night free. Hilton HHonors elite members or American Express card members save on HHonors award stays of four nights or more.

Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.

Priceline will buy meta-search engine Kayak.com for $1.8 billion. Readers of Loyalty Traveler may know I am a frequent user of kayak.com. Both sites rank in the Top 10 travel sites in the USA.

Priceline makes most of its money from hotel bookings. Kayak makes 80% of its revenue from flight search referrals according to the Financial Times.

It should be interesting to see how the Priceline/Kayak partnership takes on the Expedia online travel network.

Priceline.com is the biggest competitor to Expedia.com who owns TripAdvisor.com, hotels.com and hotwire.com.

Then there is Google who owns itasoftware.com.

The online travel market is consolidating into technology empires.

TopTenReviews has an informative article 2013 Online Travel Sites Comparison with reviews of leading online travel sites and a highly detailed chart of their features.

Airfares hit record highs in 2012. Car rental rates have steadily climbed despite high gas prices. Yet, hotels in September 2012 have an average daily rate at $105.10 in the U.S. and still lag slightly behind their September 2008 peak rates of $107.71.

2007 Q3 saw a peak in airline passenger travel with 203 million flyers. Four years later in 2011 Q3 the airline passenger level is 4% lower than 2007 peak. Average airfares in 2012 Q1 were the highest in eight years.

Car rental revenues in 2011 were the highest in 11 years and increased 8.8% over 2010 rates. There were 1.8 million rental cars in service in the US in 2011. Monthly average revenue per car was $1,060.

The point of the HotelNewsNow article with all this comparative data is to imply hotels should be able to increase room rates and get more money from consumers who obviously are willing to pay more for airfare and car rentals.

Sounds like a leisure traveler squeeze to me.

In 2012 I watched rates go through the ceiling in San Francisco, New York, Miami, Hawaii and I have to think that with corporate profits going up and middle class income going down, many leisure travelers are still facing the fiscal cliff of reduced vacation affordability.

That is why I think it is even more important as we move into 2013 to know where the deals are and how to save money on the key travel vacation components of hotels, airfare and rental cars.

This TravelPulse article indicates Europe may be where the hotel travel bargains are found in 2013.

Crowne Plaza as a hotel brand has a guest image problem.

IHG executives cited 9,000 deficiencies in the Crowne Plaza brand in their plan to reimage the brand within the upscale market segment. Crowne Plaza has about 390 hotels. In the first half of 2012 Crowne Plaza shed 16 hotels and plans to remove another 25 hotels from the brand in the next 24 to 36 months. Another 50 Crowne Plaza hotels are in the pipeline to open in the next couple of years.

I have stayed in a few Crowne Plaza hotels in the past two years in cities like Chicago, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco (airport) and a couple of others. The rooms were all nicely furnished with all the amenities I needed. The one attribute I would characterize as common to all these Crowne Plaza hotels where I stayed is the lack of character. They all had nice upscale lobbies, but there was no real common identity to these hotels aside from them seeming very business oriented facilities.

Crowne Plaza brand with a plan

So what kind of deficiencies are there at Crowne Plaza hotels and what are the reimaging solutions?

Guest check-in:

• Add self check-in kiosks in lobby.
• Provide a lobby host position as key contact for guests.

This kind of sounds like the airport model to me. Let guests fend for themselves until an issue arises where the guest needs help. Kiosks are nice for the frequent traveler who does not need to wait for the receptionist. I kind of prefer the human contact of the desk. Seems to me this is another way to reduce staffing for the hotel owners.

Food and Beverage: provide a 15-minute guarantee for food orders and provide fresh food for guests. Unclear if this is really a planned improvement or primarily a deficiency statement in the context of the article.

Guestroom amenities:

• WiFi
• One click printing
• international plugs for U.S. travelers at international hotels

The lack of plug adapters and currency converters at a hotel when staying out of the U.S. is an issue I used to find a decade ago when I forgot to pack my own. Often the hotel had adapters left behind by other guests and other times this was something that took hours of searching electronics stores in London and Melbourne to solve. Airport stores carry all this stuff these days, but generally I realize I forgot a plug adapter only after I reach the hotel.

Fitness Centers: Use the lobby for fresh fruit, towels and water to avoid the need of locating a larger fitness center space. Keep some portable exercise equipment on site for guest room rental use.

STR Global and STR US chain scale segmenting places Crown Plaza in the upscale market segment. Brands like Hilton Garden Inn, Hyatt Place, Four Points and Courtyard are in this market segment. Personally I have always thought of Crowne Plaza as more of an upper upscale hotel brand, but apparently I have not been staying in the typical Crowne Plaza.

Source: IHG means business with Crowne Plaza refresh – hotelnewsnow.com Oct 29, 2012

The Hamilton Crowne Plaza, Washington D.C. – I recall the wifi here was unbearably slow and I had a difficult time blogging from the room.

Rooftop pool at Avenue Crowne Plaza Chicago has great views.

Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.

Frequently I state that the commission an online travel agency (OTA) like Expedia and Travelocity takes in a hotel booking is about 20 to 25% of the room rate charged to the consumer. Hotels pay the OTA for their room bookings. The consumer rarely gets a cheaper room through the OTA compared to the hotel chain’s website.

This is the reason why most chain hotels do not offer loyalty program points or promotion credit for bookings through OTAs. And this is why the hotel chain can afford to run high-value points bonus promotions to drive bookings through the chain’s website. The consumer receives hotel loyalty program benefits rather than the OTA taking profits from the hotel for hotel rooms. OTAs generally do not give the loyalty program member the rebate value available through direct bookings with the hotel chain.

An article from HotelNewsNow.com states the OTA commission has gotten smaller with brand hotels paying about 15% of room rate and independent hotels about 20%. Online travel agencies do not have the bargaining power in 2012 as the global hotel industry has picked up and room rates have climbed higher.

Another potential change for 2013 is rate parity between OTAs and hotel brand websites may be ending due to “price-fixing” lawsuits in Europe.

All the hotel chains offer Best Rate Guarantees and so do the online travel agencies. The fixed hotel rates make Best Rate Guarantee claims a valuable discount for my travels since most chains discount a valid rate discrepancy by taking 10% to 25% off the lower rate.

What will be the effect on hotel loyalty programs if online travel agencies can undercut the hotel chain’s own room rates?

Seems to me like the hotel loyalty promotions would have to get better to keep consumers booking directly with the hotel chain rather than booking lower rates through online travel agencies.