FMLink – The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute welcomed President Donald Trump’s effort to reform the nation’s tax system, which has not been significantly reformed since the Reagan Administration. The current depreciation period for capital HVACR and water heating equipment is set at 39 years in the tax code, in some cases more than double [...]

Lodging – Hotel bathrooms have come a long way from plain, white spaces used merely for wash and go. After all, they are among the most important rooms in our living areas. Their design, layout, and overall look have changed and improved dramatically over the past years to become spaces for stylish comfort and relaxation [...]

USA Today – Marriott International, the largest hotel company in the world, is betting big on modular construction to drive its growth in North America. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company expects to sign 50 hotel deals this year that would incorporate prefabricated guestrooms and/or bathrooms. That would make up about 13 percent of signings for North [...]

CNBC – Source: Fifteen Beacon Hotel A new Wi-Fi enabled system promises to help hotels find and eliminate bed bugs without the help of exterminators. AIM, a product developed by a company named Delta Five, promises a 98 percent success rate. It monitors a bedroom using internal cameras and, as insects are lured to an embedded [...]

CNN -  A teenage boy died and 14 other people were hospitalized after guests at a southern Michigan hotel were found unconscious around an indoor pool. Fire officials said they believe the cause was carbon monoxide poisoning.

Buildings -  Warm weather is on the way, but it brings increased pest activity from insects, arachnids and other annoying invertebrates. It’s easier to prevent nuisance bugs from establishing an infestation, but if they’ve already invaded your facility, don’t panic. Get to know the most common springtime pests and determine how to deal with them [...]

Hotel Management -  Nobody enjoys spending money when they don’t have to, but hotels do just that all the time. When a packaged terminal air conditioner or heating, ventilation and air conditioning system component breaks on property, leadership turns to engineering to find out if the device in question can be salvaged or if a [...]

Facility Executive -  When facility managers consider their pest management responsibilities, they often think exclusively about work needed inside the building to keep rodents, insects, and other unwanted visitors away from employees, guests, and customers. However, much of the work in the fight against pests occurs outside the building envelope.

Facility Executive – Several years back, the Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, underwent a complete lobby renovation. This provided the opportunity for the hotel to improve energy efficiency by reducing demand on the HVAC system, while boosting the aesthetics of the hotel lobby. Chosen for the project was the…

Skift Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson concedes the company’s “hands are full” integrating Starwood, but he doesn’t believe the hotel chain is “done forever” in terms of mergers and acquisitions. “We’re not going to go out and try to create the opportunities at the moment,” Sorenson said. “If opportunities pop up, we’ll have to assess [...]

Green Lodging News The Alliance to Save Energy vowed to fight budget cuts for federal energy efficiency programs proposed recently by the Trump administration, including the elimination of the successful ENERGY STAR program and sharp reductions at the Department of Energy (DOE). “This is a destructive proposal that walks away from decades of bipartisan support [...]

Design Quarterly Sooner or later, every owner of a hotel or restaurant must take a hard look at renovations and make that financial decision. Is it time for a minor or major facelift to breathe new life into their hotel or restaurant or can it wait a bit longer? The timing question is easily answered [...]

Hotel Business Review In the age when reviews are a Tweet away and websites such as TripAdvisor leave a long trail of guest comments, hoteliers are under increasing pressure to keep properties up to guests’ high standards. While a quick coat of paint or a new set of furniture can often keep a hotel looking [...]

Hotel News Now From the front door to the rooftop at The Watson Hotel in New York City, a variety of colorful plants, ranging from hibiscus trees to floral arrangements in the lobby, can be found throughout the two-tower, 600-room hotel. Most urban hotels lack the amount of acreage that some suburban and resort properties [...]

Water Technology Condensate is considered good water — as pure as distilled water, low in mineral content and can be used for a number of applications in addition to cooling towers. It can be used for irrigation, in ornamental fountains and ponds, for industrial process makeup and even flushing toilets, if filtered and disinfected first.  READ [...]

Meetings Net Global design firm Gensler won the Sleep Set competition at Sleep 2016, the annual hotel design event, with a radically different conception of what guest rooms — and hotels — may become. The guests they were assigned to design for were termed “Digital Avant-Gardes” — “globalized, nonconformist travelers in constant search of new, [...]

Hotel Management The total construction pipeline ended 2016 with 4,960 projects with 598,688 rooms, a 12-percent increase by number of projects and a 10-percent rise in the number of rooms year over year, according to the year-end United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics. The fourth quarter of 2016 was the 19th consecutive [...]

1/16/17 – Government Technology Welcome to the age of benchmarking. From Fitbits to utility bills, we have the ability to track performance in every aspect of our lives. More than 15 years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency led the way for businesses and organizations to measure how much energy was used in their facilities.  READ [...]

1/16/17 – San Francisco Business Times As their economic advantages become clearer, eco-friendly features matter more and more to the hospitality industry. Not only can these programs decrease building operating costs, but some studies also show that green features can boost revenue, too. Within the Bay Area, many hotels have accepted the demand to go [...]

1/16/17 – Hotel News Now Great employee benefits, career advancement opportunities and the ability to play a role in the growth of a company are more than just perks for millennials; they’re absolute job requirements. “Employees want to feel that the company cares about their wellbeing and career; they want to feel part of a [...]