The coming together of six of the biggest and most competitive hotel companies to create Room Key showed just how important it was to the founding partners to create a lower-cost alternative to OTAs. Yesterday, Room Key removed its beta tag and officially launched to consumers with several new features, including inventory from the unlikeliest partner: Travelocity.

Yes, you read that right. Room Key — the brands’ meta search-engine answer to online travel agencies — worked out a deal with the big, bad wolf. And it was a smart move, and one that shows CEO John Davis is running Room Key, not its founding (and funding) partners.

“Are we going to do what’s right for us or for our consumers,” Davis says was the question to the board. “We want to take care of the customers, we’re too new to the game and we came to the conclusion we needed the added inventory. There was some gnashing of the teeth, but it was a quick resolution.”

CLICK HERE FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LOOK AT ROOM KEY

The white-label agreement with Travelocity provides all of the OTA’s inventory to Room Key, so consumers today have a choice of approximately 100,000 U.S. hotels compared to just the 30,000 properties from Room Key’s founding and newer commercial partners.

Consumers won’t know they’re booking via Travelocity, and a prominent note on Room Key’s site makes it clear that “A hotel logo means you book directly on that hotel’s website and enjoy these great benefits [lowest rates, loyalty points and others are listed].” If consumers choose to book one of the hotels from Travelocity’s inventory, Room Key offers a “book it” button versus “book at [brand logo]” and takes them to the white-label reservation page that appears to be from Room Key.

The boost in inventory brings Davis the hotels he hasn’t been able to secure directly from Starwood, Carlson Rezidor, La Quinta and other independents and small chains. He says it’s a “long-term contract” with Travelocity, but hopefully an “interim solution” allowing customers the breadth of choice needed to make Room Key viable now and give Davis the time he needs to add those other brands directly.

“As we bring hotels to direct connect, we take them off private label,” says Davis about the revenue-sharing agreement with Travelocity. “It’s s fair deal for both of us, a great tradeoff.”

Davis also has contracts with CRS providers Sabre, TravelCLICK and Trust International that will bring another 20,000-plus rooms of direct inventory to Room Key by this summer, including smaller chains like World Hotels, Leading Hotels, Kimpton and Rosewood. Now that the consumer launch has passed, he also says the focus will shift to adding the larger brand companies and some announcements could be coming within the month.

Other new features unveiled with the consumer launch on May 9: a new Facebook page with consumer contests, a short-list tool for trip planning and social-media sharing, and consumer reviews and ratings from TripAdvisor.

Room Key drew 1.9 million visitors in March and although not official yet, Davis expects closer to three million in April. “I am a little surprised to be knocking on the door of three million in the third month,” he says of the early results since the beta launch in January. The most important number: 25% of those are repeat customers. “That’s the win. … The strategy we’ve laid out with exit traffic is working.”

Davis says there will be some traditional online and print advertising, but the focus will remain on social networking and the exit-traffic pop-under windows from the partner’s brand.com sites. “There’s no use swerving the car, we’re getting the numbers, let’s not get crazy and spend a bunch of money on advertising when the initial plan is working.”

After 23 years, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association is still going strong. Founded in 1989, AAHOA continues to grow and this year will top the 11,000-member mark, an amazing number. What those 10,000-plus members represent in the industry is even more impressive: more than 20,000 hotels totaling $128 billion in value.

For proof of that, you didn’t need to look any further than yesterday’s opening general session that included an industry leaders panel with moderator Buggsi Patel of BHG Hotels, Navin Dimond of Stonebridge Companies, Bharat Patel of Sun Development, Vinay Patel of SREE Hotels, D.J. Rama of JHM Hotels and Mit Shah of Noble Investment Group. The panelists, and their companies, represented 35,000 hotel rooms, said Buggsi Patel, adding that “you can see the power of the people in our association.”

“Who ever would have thought we’d get to 10,000 members,” asked Vinay Patel. “The biggest challenge and opportunity for this organization is how do we involve the second and now third generation that may have been disenfranchised with what AAHOA has been?”

The leaders discussed the future of the association and how to keep it moving forward and attracting new members. Navin Dimond suggested tweaking the mission statement as the group’s reason for being has changed through the years.

Bharat Patel was the most outspoken, saying the focus had to be on education and the association had to do a better job of attracting the younger generation he sees at all the brand conferences, but not at AAHOA’s annual event. “As long as we’re a political association and not a business association, those kids won’t be here,” he bluntly said. “We’ve made strides in recent years, but the entire board is a political circus. That needs to stop.”

“We’re not going to change that,” said Mit Shah. “Politics is an innate part of our culture … Instead, we need to be relevant for those 11,000 members. We’re not going to make everyone happy, but we need to make it as good as it can be for those owners.”

After two weeks and more than 5,000 votes, we have the readers’ choice winner in the second annual Lodging Hospitality Design Awards Poll. The Omni Dallas pulled away late in a close battle with the Radisson Blu Aqua Chicago. The Omni received 55% of the vote with 2,911 votes, while the Radisson Blu got 44%

The 1,001-room Omni Dallas was one of the biggest hospitality projects to open in 2011, a $550-million public-private development designed by BOKA Powell, 5G Studio and waldrop+nichols studio. The final result is a massive convention center hotel that reflects the dichotomy of Dallas, its commerce contrasted with glamour and glitz. The project earned LEED Silver certification.

Click here for the full results of the poll, and take a last look at the three projects and find photo galleries of each.

It’s not STR’s performance results, PKF’s forecast or Jones Lang LaSalle’s transaction tabulations that tell me the hotel industry has regained its footing. It’s my email in-box, which in the last week alone — the last two days in fact — has brought news of two new brands and invitations to rather extravagant press trips.

We’re probably not quite to 2006 levels of success, and still have a ways to go with the lending environment obviously, but the fact companies new and old are popping up with plans for new and unique brands is a sure sign the good times are here, or very near. On Tuesday, plans for Hemingway Hotels & Resorts were announced. The luxury brand will celebrate the life of the acclaimed American author and appear in locales with connections to him or his writings. Adventure sports, local foods and bars will reflect his passions at the properties.

Thursday brought news of an extended stay brand launch: Sonesta ES Suites, which will debut this June in Burlington, MA. The converted Staybridge Suites will serve as the model for a new brand from Sonesta International. (Speaking of IHG, it was last month when the company announced plans for a new brand in China, and the fitness-focused Even here.)

More plentiful has been the return of the press trip — invitations to travel journalists and sometimes even the trade press for hosted trips intended to showcase a new property, a tourist destination or even a city or nation. The hosts range from hotel companies or resort owners to city or even country’s tourism boards and often a combination of the two. The concept is simple: Bring a journalist in to experience a property and the surrounding areas and hope they write about it to spread the word to consumers. Invitations to Europe, Canada, the Caribbean and across the U.S. have come in recent weeks.

New brands and invitations to far off places weren’t a regular occurrence the last few years. The news instead was about the struggles or failures of brands launched just before or after the bottom fell out of the world in 2008, and the story pitches were about how operationally efficient some of the previously free-spending companies had become.

I wouldn’t necessarily trust my not so scientific study of the industry over STR, PKF or JLL, but it has to be a good sign that companies are getting more aggressive with their plans and marketing.

I have no idea if Hemingway Resorts will succeed, let alone come to fruition, but I’m hoping for an invitation to experience a grand opening in Cuba or maybe some bullfighting in Spain.

This year’s class of Lodging Hospitality Design Award winners all proved impressive design and development could be accomplished during challenging economic times. The Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago, the Shore Hotel in Santa Monica, CA and the Omni Dallas all opened last year with more than modest price tags. All were new construction, and all delivered exceptional design.

Like last year, we’re asking our readers to choose which one they were most impressed with. Check out all three projects here and find links to photo galleries of each. Then vote for your favorite.

We’re not offering cash prizes for the winner. Like the Design Awards contest, this readers’ choice poll is just for fun and to showcase three projects we found worthy of discussion. Over the next two weeks, we’ll spotlight each of the three in an LHeReport and we’ll close the voting and announce the popular champion on Friday, April 27.

Sometime afterward, we’ll follow up with someone from the winning property’s design team to take a closer look at what made the property stand out.

Check out the design award winners here.
Vote for your favorite here.

I’m not a TV critic or reviewer, but my life does revolve around the DVR. And I’ve got it set for the Travel Channel at 10 p.m. (ET/PT) Monday to watch the debut of “Hotel Impossible.”

The premise of the show is just like the Food Network’s “Restaurant Impossible,” but instead features struggling hotels and their owners looking for a fix. The “hotel fixer,” star and mastermind of the show is Anthony Melchiorri, an industry veteran who’s spent the bulk of his career turning around notable properties in Manhattan.

The show offers viewers an inside look at the hotel industry. “There are a lot of people in the restaurant business and there you see the kitchen, the staff, the food as it comes out,” says Melchiorri, who spoke to me a couple weeks ago about the show. “What people don’t realize about a hotel is you can’t see everything. You can’t see 99% of what happens.”

Now, every Monday you’ll get a behind-the-scenes and often ugly look inside a struggling independent property. The show is for the casual TV viewer and ultimately the hotel guest, but it still should be appealing to those in the industry if all the episodes are like the first. At Gurney’s Inn in Montauk, NY, Melchiorri deals with a family-run and –owned property stuck in the past.

He focuses on the hotel’s top management and its lack of leadership and attention to detail, but also offers hands-on lessons to housekeepers, a bellman and the restaurant staff. The tutorials aren’t Earth shattering and probably things most hoteliers have heard before, but getting back to basics is Melchiorri’s mission and a good lesson for everyone.

“It doesn’t take rocket science to clean a room and smile,” Melchiorri says of the simplest, and maybe most important, keys to this industry. “People forgive a nick on the furniture, but not bad service.”

I’ve heard the same thing from leaders at Marriott and Wyndham, and from GMs across the country, but sometimes a reminder is needed. I think the show will be a success, but either way, at least it’s one more thing to keep me away from “Dancing with the Stars.”

Excuse this self-promotional plug, but I really am excited about the upcoming Midwest Lodging Investors Summit in Chicago this July. This will be the fifth year for MLIS and we’re well on our way to having our greatest lineup of speakers and panel topics.

I know it’s early — almost four months from the gathering at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place from July 16-18 — but I am looking forward to hearing Strategic Hotels CEO Laurence Geller kick off the event. The CEOs panel that follows has an eclectic assortment of leaders, like Best Western’s David Kong, Interstate Hotels’ Jim Abrahamson and Concord’s Mark Laport to name a few. The lunch conversation with Brand USA CEO Jim Evans and AH&LA Chair Nancy Johnson is sure to enlighten us on what those two groups are doing to ensure this country regains its status as the place to visit.

After lunch we’re splitting into three groups for in-depth back-to-back repeating sessions breaking down Urban, Suburban and Interstate markets. Attendees will get to attend two of three, and hear about the specific opportunities and challenges in each.

We’ll also have what we’re loosely calling our Financial Pavilion, with a handful of active hotel lenders setting up shop to talk about the money they have available. We’ll even be making appointments for you, if you so desire. The final session of the event is the “Who’s Got Money?” panel discussing if, when and where credit is available.

I could go on, but then what would I have to write about next time? Plus you’re probably getting bored. Hope to see you in Chicago, and click here for more information on MLIS. And as always, please email me with any questions.

Room Key was once again a hot topic during the Hunter Conference in Atlanta earlier this week. The new hotel search engine created by six of the largest hotel brand companies was slated to officially launch to consumers in March, but CEO John Davis says it will actually be in late April as the company continues to add inventory and deal with what he terms “clean-up issues.”

The beta version of the site is open for business now, but the consumer launch will bring added features and a renewed marketing push. On Tuesday during the presidents’ panel at the Hunter Conference, a good 10 minutes of an hour-long session was spent discussing Room Key.

Steve Joyce, the CEO of founding partner Choice Hotels and an outspoken critic of online travel agencies, was the de facto spokesperson answering for Room Key. Moderator Michael Medzigian, chairman of Watermark Capital Partners, asked if Room Key was successful, why would it be any different than the other OTAs and why the CEO [John Davis] wouldn’t try to make it as profitable as possible.

“This is clearly an issue that needs dealt with,” Joyce said. “We have brand companies around the table whose primary function is selling franchise and management contracts. It’s a huge mistake, and would be received poorly, if the founding partners starting making lots of money from this. Profits can be had, but the idea is as profits get bigger, you lower the cost, not make more money. I can tell you the alignment around the table today is very strong.”

Jim Abrahamson, now CEO of Interstate Hotels & Resorts but the previous leader of IHG’s Americas division during the development of Room Key, added the new site “has to grow and expand for it to be a vibrant tool that customers want to use. They’ve got to reinvest and market this. This is the first major step to getting control of our inventory back.”

Cyril Ranque, Expedia’s SVP of global lodging, wasn’t on this panel, but he was asked about Room Key during the conference’s opening session the day before. “Room Key will play in the mix, but there are a lot of players,” he said. “The exit window strategy (for marketing) is interesting, but on our site it doesn’t convert well. And the customer needs variety.”

Ranque pinned down Room Key’s two main challenges far more succinctly than I have in my many stories on the topic.

There’s a month left until the consumer launch, so more news could be coming, but I wonder where the Carlsons, Red Roofs and La Quintas of the world are. Leaders at all three companies expressed great interest — even excitement — about the launch, but none have signed on the dotted line yet. Room Key needs those players and more to get the variety Ranque has at Expedia. If everyone keeps waiting, Room Key will face an uphill battle. Adding the Preferred Hotel Group and then the European launch last week with the addition of WorldHotels were good steps, but the biggies (Starwood?) here in the U.S. need to be a part of the mix.

If the exit strategy doesn’t work, will Davis have the funds to spend on marketing or will the founding partners be willing to lend a hand (and more money)?

Only time will tell, but we’re a month from seeing what this really looks like.

Bob Hunter said he was taking the cautious out of the “cautious optimism” phrase that has described the lodging industry for the better part of three years. “The glass is more than half full,” he said during the opening of the 24th annual Hunter Conference at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta on Monday.

Unbridled may not be the exactly right word to replace cautious, but there’s no doubt the mood at the Marriott Marquis the past two days has been far more positive and real than at any event during the past three years.

“We should stop talking about doom and gloom,” said Carlson Rezidor EVP Nancy Johnson, also the AH&LA chair.

“We should feel pretty damn good,” said FelCor Lodging Trust Chairman Tom Corcoran during his keynote address. “We’ll have a long term run of success now. This will lead to a great decade for the industry.”

Even the numbers guys were confident. Mark Woodworth reiterated PKF’s forecast, calling for a 5.8% boost in revenue per available room this year, led by a 4.1% gain in average daily rate. PKF has reported six straight quarters of ADR growth, and with new supply limited, Woodworth said, “We are confident forecasting a sustained period of attractive industry profit growth.” PKF’s latest issue of Hotel Horizons projects occupancy gains through 2016, which would be an unprecedented six-year run of growth that began in 2010.

Tim Hart, an EVP from TravelClick, said group, transient business and transient leisure business were all up in roomnights booked and rate. He said the most promising sign was group business was back and getting stronger.

And even better news, those not on stage were saying the same types of things. Owners, operators and brand company executives didn’t just sound positive, they were positive. I met the owner of two smaller midscale hotels in the Midwest who paid to attend the conference because he’s looking to add to his portfolio and move up the ladder and expand his business.

Two years ago, owners like him were at these events, if they could even afford to travel, looking to find a buyer. Attendance at the conference was at an all-time high, Bob Hunter said.

Times really have changed. Rajeev Dhawan, an economist from Georgia State University, did caution of potential pitfalls with rising gas prices, a “mild” European recession and an Asian slowdown. He said it might not be that the economy is accelerating, but “it’s that the headwinds have lessened.”

The messages at Hunter — be confident and raise rates, lenders are returning to lodging, new construction isn’t far off, things are better — were the same at other recent events, this time they sounded far more real.

On March 31, Arne Sorenson will become the first CEO of Marriott International not named J. Willard Marriott. He’s 27 years younger than his predecessor, Bill Marriott Jr., and he hasn’t spent a lifetime in the hotel industry like the man he’s following. But don’t expect big changes with Sorenson at the helm.

He’s really been helping direct the company the past three years as president and chief operating officer and although Mr. Marriott is relinquishing the CEO title, the soon-to-be 80-year-old plans to be just as involved with his new title of executive chairman. And on top of that, Sorenson says, “I am heavily trained by him. An awful lot of what I’ve learned is from him. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody that our approaches and instincts can be quite similar.”

CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT MARRIOTT’S LASTING LEGACY.

In 1972, Mr. Marriott got more than just the CEO title. His father also gave him a letter with instructions. Mr. Marriott didn’t see the need to do that this time around. “He knows what to do,” he says of Sorenson, the man he’s spent 15 years grooming for this role.

“There wasn’t a formal, ‘OK, here are the keys, the two to three things that are important,” Sorenson says of the appointment announced on Dec. 13. “In a sense, all the years worth of conversations amounted to the same thing. Those conversations included a lot of advice, some deliberately, some not.”

The lessons he learned are also prime examples of what has made Mr. Marriott a great leader, Sorenson says:

1) “Listen. Listen to the organization; listen to the ideas from the members of the company, the marketplace, the competition. Keep your eyes open and make sure you’re not simply perpetuating the current way of doing business … The listening piece isn’t about hearing, but taking in the inputs.”

2) “Bias to change. One of the diseases successful CEOs often fall into is they do a bunch of things in their early years and then get stuck in that way of doing things. They get almost rigid in perpetuating their early decisions. That’s one of the things that makes him unique. He has been CEO for 40 years, but he is still as likely as anyone else in the company to say, ‘You know, we’ve got to change that.’ Even though virtually everything we’ve done he’s had a hand in.”

3) “Strong bias for action. He has a bit of frustration with how long things can take — a bit of frustration with bureaucracy. He knows when not to make decisions, but when you’ve got enough data, be willing to make a decision … He leads by saying how can we do even better, and if it means changing a decision from the past, he’s happy to change it. That’s something I would very much like to follow and I hope I can.”

Sorenson says there aren’t many differences between the two leaders, but their ages probably create a few. “I probably have a bias to loud music,” says the former lawyer who will turn 54 in October. “I’m around and like the design space and see that differently. I’m more comfortable in Edition than him personally, but intellectually, Bill understands and has been really supportive of that partnership (with Ian Schrager) because he knows we have to appeal to those customers.”

Sorenson says the global aspect of the business is more of a passion for him: “Maybe it’s not a difference, because Bill has been involved in our global growth personally and significantly for 35 years since we opened the Amsterdam Marriott in 1975. He’s personally sat in boardrooms with the president of Poland 20 years ago and others since, and he’s been all over the world.

“But notwithstanding that, I probably get more of a kick out of traveling around the world than he does. I absolutely love getting to these destinations and being personally involved.”

Sorenson’s recent vacation spots highlight his passion for seeing the world: the south of France for Christmas and a summer climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro with his children. Other family trips have included Egypt, India, Israel, Russia and Japan. “The world is a big place,” he says, adding that Cambodia, Africa and Vietnam are three places he hopes to soon see for the first time.

Mr. Marriott, on the other hand, recently spent a month at one of his favorite locations, the Harbor Beach Marriott in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He also has a summer home in New Hampshire, and still spends time at Fairfield Farm, his father’s favorite place, in the Virginia foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

There aren’t too many other differences between the two leaders, which will make the transition long underway even more seamless. Mr. Marriott has high expectations for the new CEO.

“I’ve been in this business for 60 years,” he says, “so I am probably more knowledgeable about the operations of hotels than he is. But when it comes to corporate governance, strategic thinking and negotiating with owners and franchisees, he’s very good and much better than I am. He’s got the skills, brains, work ethic, drive and energy it takes to run something this big. He’s destined to be one of the finest CEOs in the country.”