South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels|"Carlyle Checks Into Chinese Hotel Sector"

Source              : news.xinhuanet.com
Category        :  South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels 
By                  :  Cai Xiao
Posted By     :  Hotels in Virginia Beach South Courtyard

South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels

Carlyle Group has developed a taste for the Chinese hotel industry and its investment pace in the sector this year is expected to remain solid. The latest move by Carlyle — one of the world's largest private equity firms — was to complete a deal to take 7 Days Group Holdings Ltd private. The company, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, runs the 7 Days Inn budget hotel chain in China. In March, 7 Days Group said that Carlyle, Keystone Lodging Co Ltd and Sequoia Capital planned to acquire the company for $4.60 per ordinary share, or $13.80 per American Depositary Share. In July, 7 Days Group, Carlyle and Sequoia Capital announced the establishment of the Plateno Hotels Group and said that the 7 Days Inn chain would become part of it. The Plateno Hotels Group will develop another four high-end and mid-tier hotel brands based on the 7 Days Inn's concept.

"With the acceleration of the country's urbanization drive and an improvement in Chinese people's disposable income, customers will have more specific requirements and the coverage of high-end and economic hotels will have a bigger market space," Eric Zhang, a managing director at Carlyle, told China Daily. Zhang said that the hotel sector has a close relationship with the country's economy. And as the Chinese economy remains on a healthy track, investing in the Chinese hotel industry has great potential. "The business risk pattern of the hotel sector is low, and brands, sites and resources are key factors of the sector and it's hard for competitors to copy them," he said. Zhang added that the relatively high valuation of the hotel sector is another reason behind Carlyle's confidence in the industry. "Although lots of budget hotels emerged and competition among them was fierce, the market is far from being saturated," said Zhang, adding that budget hotels are able to compete with guesthouses and two- and three-star hotels.

Industry insiders said that Carlyle is taking part in the 7 Days Inn deal not because the valuation of the company was lower than its real value, but because Carlyle is confident on the company's growth prospects and sustainable profitability. Carlyle also took a controlling 49 percent stake in China's Mandarin Hotel Holdings Ltd in July last year, in a bid to tap into the country's emerging mid-tier hotel market. The value of the investment was not revealed, but a typical deal by the fund through which the investment was made — Carlyle Asia Partners III LP, which totals $2.55 billion — is usually worth more than $75 million. "The mid-tier market in China is very fragmented and of great potential, and Mandarin Hotel Holdings is a leader in this market with its product design and marketing strategies," said Zhang. "So we feel confident (the deal will) help the company to perfect its business and brand to win in the market." The total number of rooms of Chinese mid-tier hotel chains only accounts for 12 percent of the whole mid-tier hotel industry, according to Carlyle data.

Founded in 2006, Mandarin Hotel Holdings, which is not related to the Mandarin Oriental chain, operates 25 hotels in six major Chinese cities, 14 of them in Beijing. It operates hotels under the Crystal Orange and Orange brands. "The Chinese high-end and budget hotels have developed very well, while even the largest 10 mid-tier hotels account for no more than 5 percent of the mid-tier hotel market," said Wu Hai, founder and chief executive officer of Mandarin Hotel Holdings and a former vice-president at Ctrip, a major online travel agency in China. Carlyle's third hotel deal in China was in 2008 when it invested $100 million in New Century Hotels & Resorts.

Source : news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-09/20/c_132735033.htm

South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels|"Hot Hotels Acquires Really Late Booking "

Source              : techcrunch.com
Category        :  South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels 
By                  :  STEVE O'HEAR
Posted By     :  Hotels in Virginia Beach South Courtyard

South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels

Hot on the heels of Groupon’s acquisition of last minute hotel booking app Blink, another Spanish competitor has been gobbled up. Madrid-based Hot Hotels has acquired local rival ReallyLateBooking. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed. TechCrunch understands, however, that talks started all the way back in April — so, unlike the premise of the two companies’ travel apps, this was anything but a last minute deal. In addition, all shareholders of ReallyLateBooking have become shareholders in Hot Hotels, therefore we can’t really chalk this up as a pure exit, more a merger of sorts. ReallyLateBooking was an early entrant into the last minute hotel booking app space in Europe, having been founded in July 2011. Its mobile apps — which like HotelTonight and lots of other competitors offers a selection of last minute deals each day to help fill partner hotels’ inventory, while also passing on significant savings to customers — has been downloaded more than 300,000 times.

In a statement, Conor O´Connor, CEO of Hot Hotels, says the acquisition makes Hot Hotels the “undisputed leader of last minute mobile hotel booking in Europe” — while talking up the last minute hotel booking app market as a whole. The Hot Hotels mobile app currently offers hotels from 30 countries and 201 cities in locations across Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia and Israel. What’s particularly interesting about the Hot Hotels story, however, is that the company remains 100% owned by its founders Conor O´Connor, Adelaida Muriel, Joe Haslam and José M. Fernández. That’s in stark contrast to U.S.-based HotelTonight, which recently closed a $45 million Series D round. Flying slightly under the radar is also JustBook, backed by Index Ventures and DN Capital.

Source : techcrunch.com/2013/09/18/hot-hotels-reallylatebooking/

South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels|"New Hotel Planned For Downtown Greenville"

Source              :  thestate.com
Category        :  South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels 
By                  :  Rudolph Bell
Posted By     :  Hotels in Virginia Beach South Courtyard

South Virginia Oceanfront Hotels

A Georgia hotel developer plans to open a 144-room Aloft Hotel at the corner of Washington and Richardson streets in downtown Greenville in early 2015. McKibbon Hotel Group of Gainesville said Tuesday it would build the hotel on top of a 474-space, $12 million parking garage that the city of Greenville plans at the site. The stylish, “select service” hotel would be seven stories tall and the garage five stories tall, creating a 12-story structure, McKibbon executives said. They said the hotel would include a pool on top of the parking garage overlooking Washington Street. That triangular, private space also would include a fire pit, dog walk and cabana rooms opening onto the pool area.

The hotel also would have a bar and café with outdoor seating, four stories high, overlooking the public plaza that runs along one edge of the site, the executives said. The hotel’s main entrance would be along the plaza, across from where the Tupelo Honey Café restaurant recently opened in the One development. The city of Greenville is spending $4 million to renovate the plaza, formerly known as Piazza Bergamo. The Aloft would be the sixth hotel along Main Street. An Embassy Suites planned at Riverplace could be the seventh. Greenville developer Paul C. “Bo” Aughtry III said he is planning to open the 156-room Embassy Suites in a new 7.5-story building in mid-2016.

The development would include a rooftop restaurant and bar and a second restaurant in the hotel lobby, he said. “We’re pricing the project right now, and I’m confident we’ll build the project,” Aughtry said Tuesday. He has developed two other downtown hotels, the Hampton Inn & Suites at Riverplace and the Courtyard by Marriott next to City Hall. The Aloft Hotel is the largest component of a mixed-use development planned at the corner of Washington and Richardson streets, one block off Main. The plans also call for 35,000 to 45,000 square feet of offices, shops and housing along Washington Street and North Laurens Street, an alleyway that has been incorporated into the public plaza, according to Hughes Development Corp., master developer for the project.

No other tenants have been announced so far. Wes Townson, a vice president with McKibbon, said Greenville’s downtown hotel market combines a base of business travelers with a growing tourist traffic, making for strong demand Monday through Saturday. “This is a market we’ve had our eye on for some time,” he said. The city’s Design Review Board is scheduled to review the plans on Oct. 3. The hotel was designed by 4240 Architecture of Denver, the same firm that designed the two-tower One development. The Aloft brand, pet friendly and modern in décor, is designed to appeal to younger consumers from the Millennial and Generation Y generations, the McKibbon executives said. The brand is owned by Stamford, Conn.-based Starwood Resorts & Hotels Worldwide, which also owns the Westin hotel brand. McKibbon previously developed Aloft Hotels in Tallahassee, Fla., and Asheville. The company’s management arm, based in Tampa, Fla., operates 76 hotels, mostly in the Southeast.

Source : thestate.com/2013/09/17/2986268/new-hotel-planned-for-downtown.html