New hotel projects suffer from frequent delays due to poor – or no – project management. The consequences hurt hotel owners and operators alike. This blog addresses some of the key concepts of project management and defines what hotel opening management is about. Let’s start with the definitions of a project and project management. A project is “a temporary endeavor, undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates that a pr

Hong Kong has held onto its title of the world’s most visited city for the ninth year in a row in market research firm Euromonitor International’s latest Top 100 City Destinations Ranking. The annual league table is based on the number of international tourists who spend 24 hours or more in a city. Hong Kong pulled in an impressive 26.6 million visitors in the previous year, largely thanks to arrivals from mainland China. In second place, with 21.2 million visitors in 2016, i

Largely known for its 5-star and luxury hotel offering, the Middle East has slowly but surely been waking up to the mid-market trend. But will this segment dominate supply eventually? The midscale and upper-midscale segments represented 21.2% of the Middle East pipeline, and upper-upscale and upscale accounted for 60.9% of future supply, according to STR data from 2017. According to HotStats and TRI Consulting, 90.3% of future supply in Abu Dhabi, and 81.7% in Dubai, is upsca

Life House breathes new life: On Tuesday, a chain of hotels co-founded by Rami Zeidan (formerly of Starwood and 1 Hotels) and Yury Yakubchyk made its official debut. According to Zeidan, Life House is the first “Silicon Valley-backed hotel company in the U.S. with a tech first approach” that has secured US$70 million in funding to date. The first location will open in Miami’s Little Havana, followed by Miami Beach, with plans to open 20 locations over the course of the next y