With as many as 45 new 5- and 4-star hotels opening across the Arabian Gulf region in the next three years, suppliers to the hospitality industry are  looking forward to a bumper sales year.

The Hilton chain is pulling out of Bahrain after 30 years, it was revealed yesterday. As of next month, the Hilton in Manama will be managed by another international chain called Golden Tulip Hospitality.

A 17-member advisory council to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which held a two-day meeting here last week, has ‘unanimously supported’ the development of an integrated casino facility, the STB said in a statement yesterday. ‘The members of the International Advisory Council for Tourism (IACT) unanimously supported the development of an integrated resort housing facilities for gaming, conventions, entertainment, luxury hotel, F&B and retail outlets,’ the STB said.

International Hotel Management Company Hermitage Hospitality Ltd. announced the appointment of  David J. Horne as its Moscow-based Director of Development.  Mr. Horne will be responsible for all aspects of hotel development, including activities with major consulting groups and individual investors and developers on various hotel developments in Russia and Former Soviet Union.

As hotels spend billions on 21st-century upgrades, younger generations of travelers will grow up sleeping in a new breed of hotel. The money is going for things such as better beds, splashier showers, trendier bars and flat-screen TVs. A recent survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association suggests the transformation is well underway in an industry that this year is spending $5 billion on upgrades. By Barbara De Lollis, USA TODAY

The U.S. hotel industry is in the early stages of an upswing, following the long-endured bottoming-out that began in mid-2001.  The upswing is expected to carry through 2005 and bring with it an improved climate for hotel investment.  These findings were revealed in a recent joint study by PKF Consulting’s Hospitality Research Group and Torto Wheaton Research.

With demand continuing to support supply growth, the current time period will be one of the most profitable in the history of the U.S. lodging industry, according to new PKF Hospitality Research report.

Nearly 3,000 guests at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans had a frightening evening Sunday as Hurricane Katrina blew out more than 175 windows in the high-rise hotel.

The infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” where Senator John McCain spent five and a half years during the Vietnam War, has been largely demolished. Only a small museum remains of the Hoa Lo prison, involuntary housing for 300 American pilots captured in the conflict. The Hilton Hanoi Opera, open since 1999, takes pains to not celebrate a connection to Hoa Lo, even if the hotel’s Web site is  hanoi.hilton.com.  Tourists still drop in to ask if the prison was located there, or at least nearby — but none of the guests, the concierge assured during a recent stay, confuse the hotel with a prison.

By Brett Patten: You must create a more instinctual and intuitive business nature not only to be more in tune with your customers, but to enhance the financial position of your business.