The Camelback Inn near Phoenix has just lost a convention for immigration lawyers, who are boycotting the state due to Arizona’s draconian immigration law. San Francisco has banned city workers from most business travel to Arizona as well. On the other hand, the American Hotel & Lodging Association pledged to hold its June summer summit meeting in Arizona as scheduled. Since tourists spend $18.5 billion in Arizona in 2008, and the hotel industry employs a large number of immigrant labor, the Arizona immigration law will impact the state’s hotels and resorts. Everyone seems to have an opinion. (Ours? This immigration law sucks, and seems to be unconstitutional, but let’s leave that for another day.) One of the worst things about it is the unrestrained prejudice and anger it has unleashed on both sides of the border. (Mexico has just issued a travel advisory for Arizona.) As if to illustrate our point, the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association has set up its own Facebook page to counter calls for a boycott of the state, provoking a firestorm of comments both for and against. Ugly stuff. We’ll follow how this immigration law shakes out in the tourism industry, especially as it affects hotels.
Those dumb plans to turn the iconic HOLLYWOOD sign into a hotel have been foiled thanks to Hugh Hefner’s donation of $900,000.00 which, combined with $500,000 from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation and Aileen Getty, allowed the Trust for Public Lands to purchase the 138-acre property protecting the sign. It will now become part of Griffith Park.
Two bandits rolled a dolly into the lobby of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Garden Grove California early Monday morning, unplugged an ATM machine, and wheeled it right out of the hotel, getting away with $15,000 in cash. No weapons were used, just a lot of chutzpah.
Props to Red Roof Inns for helping to set the standard for Free Wireless in the hospitality industry. Beginning in May, free WiFi will be available at all of the chain’s 350 properties. Also complimentary: local and long-distance calls, and up to 10 fax pages. Are they trying to court the budgeting business traveler? As Palin would exclamate, “you betcha.”
North Korea has seized five South Korean government-run resort facilities at the Diamond Mountain Resort, putting “confiscation” stickers on the buildings. The move is meant to pressure Seoul to resume cross-border tours that came to a halt when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier in 2008. (Dozens of South Korean firms own more than $320 million worth of hotels and golf courses in the mountain tourist zone just north of the border.) Unfortunately, this resort is a pawn on a much larger playing field. Until 2008, liberals ruling South Korea pursued a “Sunshine Policy” of aid and joint ventures with North Korea. When South Korean President Lee Myung-bak came to power last year, he took a more forceful approach, evidenced by the tourism moratorium at Diamond Mountain Resort. As suspicion mounts that the South Korean warship that sank near a disputed sea border between the two countries, killing 40 sailors, was due to a torpedo attack by a North Korean submarine, tensions between the two countries are at an all time high. While tourism projects between nations has usually worked in favor of peace, the Diamond Mountain Resort quite possibly could turn into a flashpoint as relations worsen. Behind it all: the specter of nuclear weapons.
And we thought the Age of Opulence was in its death throes. Designer Giorgio Armani opened its first hotel today,a 160-room operation in Dubai’s Burg Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Built in conjunction with Emaar Properties, it is modeled after the Emaar’s Address Hotel nearby, yet designed by Armani: corridors resemble fashion show catwalks, and the nightclub claims to have the world’s biggest LCD screen. Rooms here can cost as much as $11,000.00 a night, but rates begin at a mere $1089.00 per night. Is there really a market out there to support this? Or is it a money mirage? After all, this tower has struggled to fill its space, and Dubai was the world’s most overheated bubble last year, as property prices dropped by more than 50 percent. This tower was named in January in honor of United Arab Emirates President Khalifa Bin Zayed, who bailed Dubai out of its deep financial crisis. Armani is already at work planning a second hotel in Milan.
What happens when you skip your hotel bill? Ask actor Randy Quaid, who was jailed briefly, along with his wife, Evi, for skipping on a $10,000 hotel bill they racked up while staying at the San Ysidro Ranch outside of Santa Barbara, California (it’s where JFK and Jackie honeymooned.) They were only in S.B.’s jail for a few hours before posting bail. The case dates back to last September, and the couple had missed previous court dates, forfeiting $40,000 in bail. They are scheduled to return for a court hearing on Wednesday. Well, as they say in Tinseltown, bad publicity is better than no publicity.
According to a USA Today article by Roger Yu, Arizona’s new immigration policy may have dangerous repercussions in the hotel industry.
•The American Immigration Lawyers Association notified JW Marriott in Scottsdale that it’s canceling a meeting of about 300 scheduled for later this year.
•Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., has called for an economic boycott by businesses that would locate in his state or visitors who would meet there.
•Janet Murguia, head of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights group, says she’s considering “economic actions that can be taken.”
•Asian American Hotel Owners Association (don’t laugh; its 10,000 members own more than 20,000 U.S. hotels) want lawmakers to reconsider, says Ash Patel, the group’s former chairman who owns several hotels in Arizona. “(Hotel owners) are very afraid right now,” he says.
Don’t forget that Arizona has a history of shooting itself in the foot. The state lost about 170 conventions from 1990 to 1993 from boycotts because of the state’s failure to approve a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Unmistakable Camino Real design, wrapped up in an indoor pool at a clean, contemporary Mexico City lodging. Most Camino Real design has its genesis in Ricardo Legorreta’s masterpiece, the Camino Real Mexico City by Chapultepec Park.
JadedTraveler’s World’s Worst Housekeeping award goes to the Budget Lodge in Memphis TN. For six weeks, housekeepers failed to notice that the body of Sony Milbrook, a mother of five, had been hidden under the mattress and box springs. Five times guests had rented the room, unknowingly sleeping atop a cadaver. It wasn’t until the smell overpowered their best attempts to mask it that a cleaning crew discovered the body.
Kudos to Turkey, for allowing the country’s first nudist resort, at the Hotel Adaburnu-Gelmar in Datca, along the SW coast. As far as we can tell, it’s the first nudist resort in a Muslim country. Some see it as a ploy to gain Turkey membership in the E.U. Nonetheless, a courageous move.
At what point do hotels need to police guest behavior? Normally, we’d say they shouldn’t. But in Bellevue Washington, police busted a 20 year-old man who was forcing an 18-year-girl to work as a prostitute at the Bellevue Red Lion Hotel. For three days, she had sex with a number of men. This isn’t some skanky motel, but a place where the Bellevue high tech geek squad hangs out. You think the staff there — front desk, security, housekeeping — didn’t have a clue what was going on? If they didn’t, they weren’t doing their job. And if they did, it’s criminal negligence.
A homeless man in California, laid off from his former well-paid IT job, has been able to live in hotels, moving from one to the other using his rewards from airline loyalty programs and hotel points. He budgets $5 a day for food, indulging in the free breakfasts, and using the microwave and fridges often found in limited service budget hotels. He’s put his story up on Twitter, where you can follow his ongoing search for a job (and more hotel points.) @HomelessThomOC.
