Hotels | featured news

For some hotels, lobbies, business centers and meeting areas have become an untapped source of additional revenue and new customers who live and work nearby.

Because of a 1998 agreement, Marriott can buy the property under its Times Square hotel for $19.9 million, one-tenth of its current value, according to a report by the city comptroller.

Get ready for some annoying new hotel fees, such as minibar restocking and baggage holding fees, in 2013 as projected modest occupancy increases embolden hotels to tack on new fees and surcharges even for their most loyal guests.

Still looking for a place to stay for the inauguration? If you’re the type to drop $50,000 on the hotel suite where Jennifer Lopez threw Marc Anthony’s 41st birthday party, the Godfather 2 was filmed, and Marilyn Monroe slept off a long night of policy debates, then we’ve got the place for you—the “Extreme-Wow Suite” at Washington’s W Hotel.

Meadowood lives up to its billing as one of the Napa Valley’s best country resorts. Even though some of its competitors are hipper, younger, greener, and newer, one person’s throwback is another person’s classic.

Airport hotels have always been necessary but unloved stopover spots for the depleted traveler, places to shower, rehydrate and let the body recuperate from the merciless rigors of flying. Yet checking into the Hilton Frankfurt Airport, which opened in December turned out to be much more. It's an example of the emerging generation of airport hotels that are intended to function as destinations, real places where one might reasonably stay longer than a single night.

It is something every restaurateur and hotel owner knows: good reviews boost takings while terrible ones can close you down. And, in an age when everyone can be an online critic, ratings have never been more important. But until now no one could be sure just how important the online star ratings system employed by sites such as Toptable and Tripadvisor could be for a business's fortunes.

Best known for its budget flat-pack furniture, Scandinavian retailer Ikea is planning to launch a chain of budget hotels in Europe. The property division of Inter Ikea - the company that owns the Ikea intellectual property rights - is planning hotels in 100 locations across Europe. The first two hotels are expected to open in Germany in 2014. Other locations earmarked for hotels include Belgium, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, Britain and Poland.

Bibles in nightstands are a familiar amenity for hotel guests, but travelers seeking to read their favorite verse at one establishment will be in for a big surprise. The Damson Dene Hotel, which touts itself as the perfect destination for a “peaceful break away from it all” in England’s picturesque Lake District, is making quite a noise for replacing the Bible with “Fifty Shades of Grey” in its 40 guest rooms.

The station said Price would apparently watch hotel guests leave their rooms before slipping inside and claiming to be the guest, calling the front desk and extending the stay, sometimes by 10 days.