Many hotel franchise agreements stipulate arbitration over litigation. At first glance, this may appear to be more beneficial to franchisees but nothing could be further from the truth. Compulsory arbitration protects franchisor interests while diluting franchisee remedies.

Hotel Lawyer with landmark labor and employment decision from the California Supreme Court on wage and hour issues. Wage and hour claims are serious matters for employers, because they typically involve class actions with lots of current (and former employees), and the claims can cover a long period of time. They are also particularly bad for the hospitality industry because so many employees are nominally "exempt" employees--managers or assistant managers--by their titles, but not under California legal standards. (See prior postings on under the Topic of "Labor & Employment" such as New law on who is a "supervisor" can even the playing field for employers a bit.)

Hotel lawyer on a new hotel construction -- now may be the time to build or convert green hotels. OK, now that we have solved all your hotel finance problems -- or will soon at Meet the Money® 2007 (see "What are the secrets to financing a hotel project today? Who are the "active" hotel lenders and equity providers now?" and ), let's deal with some other critically important issues.

I used to love giving hotel tours. I walked my prospects everywhere, from the Presidential Suite down to the laundry room, whether they had any interest at all. My thinking back then was that I would dazzle the prospects with my best-in-class tour and, of course, everyone would book right there on the spot. That didn’t work.

Energy usage and potential savings- This year, Americans will consume close to four trillion kilowatt hours of electricity. In addition, we will burn through a hundred and forty-three billion gallons of gasoline, which at current retail prices will cost us some three hundred and sixty billion dollars, and twenty-six billion gallons of jet fuel, worth fifty billion dollars.

Hospitality Lawyer on “LIFESTYLE” hotel mixed-use development. Hotel mixed-use has emerged as one of the few ways hotel developers may be able to make a new development economically feasible, with skyrocketing construction costs. It has also become one of the hottest things going as developers of other real estate uses (shopping centers, office, retail, residential and entertainment) discover the big “IRR Premiums” that may harvested from well-planned and tightly integrated hotel mixed-use projects.

The famous Plaza Hotel is scheduled to reopen at the end of 2007 with a 100 year anniversary celebration. This $350 million renovation will contain 130 rooms and 152 condo-hotel units. Prices for the 152 condominium suites range from $1.6 million to more than $9 million which works out to $3800 to $6000 per square foot. Mike Naftali of Elad Properties, which is redeveloping the Plaza Hotel, is focusing on the most expensive condos with prices starting at $1.6 million for a one-bedroom suite...

In order to consummate any substantial business transaction, there are inevitably some “challenges” to overcome. Hotel management agreements are no exception: in part because of their complexity, and in part because hotel management agreements typically transfer effective control over valuable assets for several decades, and their terms can easily enhance — or diminish — the value of hotel by a staggering amount. We have often seen hotel values depressed by 50% or more from what the hotel would have been worth without the encumbrance of an onerous, long-term management agreement...

Hotel lawyer on hotel mixed-use development. “Hotel Mixed-Use” . . . and how it can be the pass key to unlocking both new development and bigger profits was the entire focus of The Hotel Developers Conference™ in Rancho Mirage. Creative ideas flowed and mixed. Nuggets of valuable insight were gathered. Introductions were made. Deals were done. The opening session of The Hotel Developers Conference™ was covered in my last posting on . And here’s what happened in the second full day.

In case you missed it, it has just been announced that former baseball star Reggie Jackson is the mystery developer of a proposed 252 room hotel and conference center in Seaside, California. At this point, Reggie joins a long line of celebrities and athletes jumping on the hotel mixed-use bandwagon we have covered here at www.HotelLawBlog.com.