Two items caught my attention this month. One was the announcement of Marriott teaming up with Ian Schrager to co-develop a new boutique hotel brand. The other was the 40th anniversary of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta. I'll try to connect the dots here. I was just graduating from hotel Sales neophyte when the much-heralded Hyatt Regency came on the scene. It was a time long before management contracts and asset management came in vogue, back when hotel chains owned mostly what they managed.

Hotel Lawyer on GREEN hotel development. Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro LLP (JMBM) announced today that The Hotel Developers Conference™ 2008 () will focus entirely on green hotel development and renovation. Presented by the 50-lawyer team of JMBM's Global Hospitality Group® this green hotel "summit" is co-sponsored by the University of Las Vegas (UNLV) and the Los Angeles Chapter of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). More than 450 hospitality industry leaders are expected to attend, March 12-13, 2008, at the Green Valley Ranch Resort & Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada.

How come the advertisements of the largest hotel franchise companies never mention areas of protection and encroachment, termination and liquidated damages, arbitration vs. litigation, transferability of the license agreement, reservation conversion ratio & productivity, venues for law suits, etc.?

While I hear from readers on just about every posting I make on , there are some entries that generate much more traffic than usual, draw the most comments from readers, or just seem to stir the industry pot enough to keep my phone ringing. While some of these "top" stories are thoughts about emerging trends, like Green Hotel Development, and others are my take on timely news like the Ian Schrager and Bill Marriott "Marriage," certain blog stories just seem to strike a chord with my readers.

Hotel leader Ali Kasikci has just tendered his resignation as Managing Director of the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel. He feels this is the best way to be able to fully explore new opportunities for the next step in his remarkable hotel career. For anyone looking to take their hotels or hotel company to a new level of luxury, this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as well.

In 1998, Asian American Hotel Owners Association chairman Mike Patel identified a set of standards by which to judge the actions of franchise companies. Now, nine years later, AAHOA has updated the 12 points and has embarked on a survey of franchisors to assess their compliance with these fair franchising standards. In each of my next Hotel Interactive articles, I will highlight one of the 12 points.

Hotel Lawyer on eco-friendly hotel financing in Hollywood California. Today, JMBM issued a press release announcing that its Global Hospitality Group® closed the senior debt portion of the capital stack on one of the largest single hotel mixed-use projects in the country -- and one bound to be a "Green" project at that! The complex construction loan transaction was for JMBM client, HSH Nordbank AG, a leading credit institution headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, and particularly renowned for very large construction loans on luxury hotel projects.

Hotel Lawyer on THE BIGGEST HOTEL DEAL IN HISTORY. I almost entitled this blog: "'Paris Hilton, "Get a driver!'"Fresh out of a jail after serving 23 days of a 45-day jail sentence for probation violation following an embarrassing series of drunk driving and driving without a license offenses, the insolent (now reformed) Paris Hilton should just get a driver. She may not have to worry about the cost anymore! Her Granddaddy's company has just been sold for $26 billion, and his share is $990 million!

My brother has been after me for years to take my first cruise. He and my sister-in-law have taken 17 cruises, every one of them a fun-filled, entertaining experience. For more than three decades, friends, colleagues and even clients have raved about cruises and have been reassuring me repeatedly how much I would enjoy one. The numbers, I must say, are pretty impressive: more than 12.6 million passengers - - about 10.6 million from North America - - will cruise this year, an increase of 4 percent over last year, according to the Cruise Lines International Association. And the industry continues to add new ships in order to meet and grow that demand.

The French Lick Springs Resort reopened last fall after a 2-year historic renovation of its 443 guestrooms, restaurants, casino, spa and golf course. The first hotel built on this site opened in 1845 to take advantage of the natural sulphur springs and Pluto mineral water. The original hotel burned down in 1897 but was rebuilt on a grander scale by Thomas Taggert, the mayor of Indianapolis (and later a U.S. Senator). The Monon Railroad built a spur directly to the hotel grounds with daily passenger service to Chicago. Casino gambling, although illegal, flourished at the resort. In its heyday in the Roaring Twenties, the surrounding Spring Valley had 30 hotels and 15 clubs. At the time, it was a lawless community for gamblers, politicians, sports figures, entertainers and gangsters. The town got its name from the French traders who founded it and the salty mineral deposits that attracted wildlife.