Jan Freitag
Director, Smith Travel Research
Jan Freitag: Summer Travel Preview 2006
If you haven't booked your summer vacation yet, don't worry. There's still plenty of time to plan--for the summer of 2007, that is.
"Many travelers are making summer travel destination choices very early in the year," says Sheri Lambert, senior vice president at Synovate, in the international market research company's 2006 summer planning survey. As they do, they take up rooms and airplane seats that would normally have remained available for longer.
So make your reservations as soon as possible, Lambert advises. Otherwise, you may be spending the summer paddling in your bathtub instead of the Mediterranean Sea.
Jan Freitag: Hitting the road: Hilton's bet on business travel paying off
Los Angeles Business Journal, May 9, 2005
As business travel continues to revive from a post Sept. 11 slump, Hilton Hotels Corp. is benefiting from its strategy to fill its rooms with more executives--and is doubling down on its bet.
The Beverly Hills-based hotel chain saw its guests pay an average of $158.72 a night during the first quarter--up 6.7 percent from last year and indicative of higher-spending business guests.
Now it's rapidly rolling out the welcome mat for what it expects to be an increasing number of business check-ins.
"That is really our choice, it is not indicative of any kind of a slowdown in leisure," said Marc Grossman, a senior vice president at Hilton. "You will probably see that leisure slice get even smaller."
Jan Freitag: Audio Interview w/ Jan Freitag, a Director with Smith Travel Research - 'Online Distribution Revisited.'
Jan Freitag is outside looking in, yet extremely well informed. He's outside because he doesn't own or operate a hotel. But he's also on the inside, as a director with Smith Travel Research. He has data, numbers and a wealth of information. Confused yet? You won't be after you listen to this streaming audio ONHTEC feature about Online Distribution.
Jan Freitag: Watchers: Rutherford poised for more hotel construction
Rutherford County's hunger for new hotels probably won't be sated soon, observers say, despite a mini-boom that will lift the county's room count by a fifth in the next two years.
Both business and tourism are contributing to the development of Rutherford, one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. Job growth has averaged more than 2 percent a year since 2001. The U.S. Travel Data Center says tourism spending - led by Stones River National Battlefield, which draws almost 200,000 visitors annually - grew to $195 million last year, up 10 percent from the year before.
Jan Freitag: City's hotels seeing strong sales
Though some Inner Harbor tourist attractions are seeing fewer visitors this summer, the drop has not hurt the city's hotels. In fact, Charm City hoteliers are getting better returns for their rooms.
The occupancy levels of Baltimore hotels remained largely flat in May and June, at 75 percent and 81 percent, respectively, according to Smith Travel Research Inc.
But the average daily room rate in May, at $117 per night, was 5 percent higher than the $111 Baltimore hoteliers charged in May 2005. The average daily room rate in June was $122, or 10 percent higher than the average daily room rate of $110 in June 2005.
Jan Freitag: Q4 conventions boost 2006 growth for Wichita hotels
Third straight year of higher occupancies
Increased occupancy rates and higher average daily rates during the fourth quarter helped Wichita's lodging industry grow faster than national averages for 2006.
That's the finding in a report from Smith Travel Research, a lodging industry tracking service based in Hendersonville, Tenn.
Click here to find out more!
The STR report shows the average daily rate (ADR) in the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area was $68.97, up 9.3 percent over the 2005 ADR of $63.11. Wichita's room rates range from $29.99 to $189.95 a night.