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Langham Hospitality Investments, an investment trust controlled by property developer Great Eagle Holdings Ltd, raised about US$550 million in an IPO on Thursday, the first of several issuers looking to benefit from a surge in investors’ demand for commercial property and high-yield securities in Hong Kong. The investment trust offered 852.2 million share stapled units at HK$5 each, putting the total deal at HK$4.26 billion ($549 million), said sources with direct knowledge of the deal, who were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter. The offering was marketed at a range of HK$4.65-5.36 per unit.

Once we are out of the somewhat carefree college and university days we end up spending a major chunk of our lives in professional organizations, quite until it is time to hang up our boots and retire to a slow-paced, less hectic twilight years. Hence it is essential to understand what are these buildings all about where we spend anywhere between 10-12 hours of our waking hours and 5-6 days of our week (depending on which part of the world you work in).

Before graduating in June from Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management, a school in Dubai that is in academic association with the renowned École Hôtelière de Lausanne and part of the Jumeirah Group, Samuel Moult is busy filing applications to work in one of Jumeirah’s global hotels. He is hoping to get a placement in Dubai.

TP Vision's announces its new portfolio of Philips hotel TVs. With Philips Studio, Philips EasySuite, Philips MediaSuite and Philips Signature, hoteliers can chose the LED sets that best suit their needs. Screen sizes span between 48cm (19'') and 140cm (55'). The Philips hospitality TV offering suits any room and ambience; from smaller standard rooms up to spacious suites; from budget hostels to design hotels.

Leading boutique Asian hotelier Alila Hotels & Resorts will more than double its portfolio of boutique hotels and resorts by 2015, with ambitious plans to add up to 10 new properties in the next two years.

While sleek minimalism set the tone for urban boutique hotels in the 1990s, rustic elements are warming up the newest crop of small hotels. These trendsetters emphasize their sense of place through local themes, building materials, restaurant fare, entertainment or a combination of them all.

Sofitel Luxury Hotels today announced the continued expansion of its So SPA in Asia Pacific, the brand's spa concept designed exclusively for Sofitel hotels worldwide.

Travel packages offering halal food and cooking and prayer rooms find approval with Muslim travellers – ITB Berlin presents the results of a survey by DinarStandard, a leading institute, on the potential of the Muslim travel market

Robert Mandelbaum overviews the results of PKF Hospitality Research's 2013 edition of Trends® In The Hotel Industry. Based on a sample of operating statements collected from approximately 6,500 hotels during the 2013Trends®survey,rooms revenueincreased by a healthy 6.3 percent from 2011 to 2012; however,total hotel revenuegrew by just 5.0 percent. This means that the combined revenue earned fromfood and beverage,other operated departments, andrentals and other incomeincreased only 2.3 percent per available room (PAR), or a mere 0.5 percent when measured on a dollar per occupied room basis (POR).

In recent years, sustainability has been widely perceived and practiced in forms of greenification. The hospitality industry has made significant development in the 'green' department by driving towards more sustainable technologies and processes that help both the environment and the bottom line. However, sustainable development should encompass the three elements of people, planet and profit (the 3Ps) - implying long-term considerations for all stakeholders.

InterContinental Hotels Group's recent decision to make basic Internet access across all brands free to loyalty club members is a game-changer that could hasten development of tiered Internet pricing, according to several hotel industry analysts. While most major multibrand hotel companies require guests to be at a certain elite tier in loyalty programs to get free Internet access, other brands have made it free for all program members, including Omni, Kimpton and Fairmont, according to Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst and strategist at Hudson Crossing. The move by IHG, the world's largest hotel company by number of rooms, is likely to spur action from similar competitors.

On the cusp of the summer travel season, AdGooroo has taken a look at the state of paid search in the travel sector in the U.S. The company has found that, on the whole, paid search expenditures have been trending down since 2011. Spend fell 19% from January through April of this year compared to last year. That follows an 11% drop during the same period from 2012 to 2011. The downward trends hold through the summer months.

More travelers are bringing their entertainment with them and LodgeNet, a hotel TV entertainment provider, has filed for bankruptcy. Some major hotel chains also have dropped sex-related TV programs.

Known as Magic City, Miami's sugar-sand beaches, glistening waters and world-class attractions are casting spells and captivating the hotel investment community. With more than $600 million of investment in the Miami hotel market in 2012, investors are definitely taking notice of the Sunshine State's burgeoning tourism corridor's strong returns. This week Jones Lang LaSalle's hotel experts attended the Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit (CHRIS) and Hotel Opportunities Latin America(HOLA) conferences in Miami, and are expecting investors to place nearly $750 million of capital into the global hub in 2013, a moderate 12 percent increase over 2012. The first quarter of 2013 already outpaced 2012 levels, with an increase of lodging demand by nearly five percent.

iRiS Software Systems, the global hotel guest services application developer, has reported a surge in sales for its market-leading hotel software applications. The award-winning company has long held the belief that 2013 would be the year that the hotel market would truly accept and adopt guest facing technology and this is proving to be the case.

Onity, one of the world's leading providers of electronic locks and energy management solutions, has been selected by Larson Companies to provide the Onity™ SensorStat™ DDC Energy Management System (EMS) to a new full-service Holiday Inn in Eau Claire, Wisc. Onity is part of UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a unit of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX).

After 60 years of developing talent and educational resources for workers in the hospitality industry, the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (EI) today announced plans to partner with the University of Phoenix® to expand academic opportunities for hospitality professionals.

Cityzenbooking, a leading online sales channel dedicated to serviced apartments, has become an eRevMax certified channel following the creation of a two-way XML interface. Cityzenbooking will be able to gain access to broader inventory supply, improve booking conversion and increase revenues as part of its growth plans across Europe.

Marco Polo Hotels, one of the leading hospitality brands in the Asia Pacific region recently launched its signature lifestyle magazine. The powerhouse location of the three Hong Kong properties from the Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel, Prince Hotel and the Gateway Hotel in synergy with the seven Marco Polo hotels in mainland China and three hotels in Southeast Asia will be harnessed and will be one of the most influential sources of information and inspiration across its portfolio.

The goal of every hotelier is to book as many reservations through their website as possible…after all; this is the most profitable channel. Ideally, every visitor would convert and book a room immediately, but this is not always the case. The Internet's most popular sites average a 3% conversion rate with the hotel industry averaging upwards to a 10% conversion rate. What about all those visitors to your site who don't immediately convert? This article covers some quick tips to ensure you are maximizing the value of all the traffic to your site, even travelers who are still in the research phase, including: