Word: roomed
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...wave of new hotels is reaching the market. Some 5,400 hotels will likely open globally in 2009 and 2010, the biggest surge in a decade, according to research firm Lodging Econometrics. UBS real estate analyst Eric Wong predicts a glut. As a result, revenue per available room - a common measure of hotel performance - is expected to fall in every major market in 2009. "Everybody was trying to grab a slice of the action," says Wong. "Now a lot may start to unravel...
...crunch. In the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau, Shangri-La was scheduled to open two hotels along the city's nascent Cotai Strip this year, but casino operator Las Vegas Sands failed to raise the necessary funds and the entire project is on hold. In the U.S., a 223-room hotel in Chicago, due to open in 2011 in Waterview Tower, is also stalled due to the developer's financing difficulties...
...Then there's the challenge of filling rooms, both new and old. The Wall Street meltdown has reduced visits by big-spending bankers, mainstays of the luxury-hotel business. So far, Shangri-La is avoiding widespread discounting of room rates to protect its image. "If you look at all the top brands in the world at the high end - the Louis Vuittons, the Rolls-Royces - they never discount," says Greg Dogan, Shangri-La's chief operating officer. Instead, Shangri-La is targeting new customers, including corporations that might benefit from government stimulus packages, like construction companies, or are recession-resistant...
...gives retailers to treat you like a queen for a day. During the flush times, salespeople were surly, waiters snobby, as though their kanpachi tartare with wasabi tobiko might be too good for the likes of you. But now the customer rules, just for showing up. There's more room to stretch out on the flight, even in coach. The malls have that serene aura of undisturbed wilderness, with scarcely a shopper in sight. Every conversation with anyone selling anything is a pantomime of pain and bluff. Finger the scarf, then start to walk away, and its price floats silkily...
...that country look like? It will still have its legendary natural beauty. Mannar's isolation has made it a paradise for birds such as the brilliant blue Indian rollers that skim over the salt marshes. And some are hopeful that with the end of the Tigers, there will be room for a new dialogue between Tamils and Sinhalese, says Ahilan Kadirgamar of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, an advocacy group. But for Tamils from LTTE territory, Kadirgamar notes, "their sense of citizenship will be determined by how they are treated." They may re-enter Sri Lankan society only to find...