Timing is Everything for Securing Luxury Hotel Bargains

The forecast for hotels in 2008 in the USA is a rise in rates (about 5% depending on location), along with a decline in occupany (1-4% depending on location).

As personal income sees limited growth in 2008, the projections for travelers staying in hotels decline. PKF Hospitality Research projects 115,000 rooms to be added to USA hotel room supply in 2008. The projected trend is for new hotel openings to decline from 2010 to 2012.

The interesting news to me as a loyalty traveler is the room rate increase estimated at 4.7% for 2008 and nearly twice the 2.7% estimated rate of inflation for 2008 and more than 1% over the long-term annual room rate increases.

Do I have this sorted out correctly?

The hotel industry is about to see a glut in hotel rooms as more than 100,000 rooms are added to US inventory in 2008. There is an anticipated decline in occupancy overall due to the extra hotel rooms hitting the market, and room rates are expected to rise at twice the rate of inflation in 2008.

"After analyzing historic periods of economic recession and rising inflation, PKF-HR found that hotel managers have been able to pass along inflationary increases to their guests," - Mark Woodworth, President of PKF Hospitality Research.

"PKF-HR forecasts that a 5.8 percent increase in average daily room rates will offset a 3.8 percent decline in occupancy within the Luxury segment."

Where is the logic in these trends? It certainly isn't consumer-friendly logic.

Which brings me to the point of timing is everything when looking for a hotel bargain. I like to use San Francisco as a case study example due to the large tourism segment for leisure travelers and conference attendees.

Last week the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons was in the city and the doctors were easily identifiable by the AAOS lanyard hanging around the suit collar. 30,000 conventioneers in town and hotel prices through the roof. Starwood's Le Meridien San Francisco was one of the few hotels in their portfolio still available at the end of the week -- for $500+ night. This is for a hotel that was going for $129 for a couple of weeks back in December 2007.

Travel planning on a budget requires coordinating flight plans with hotel plans. I scored a great summer airfare to Iceland a few years back. I paid under $100 all-in roundtrip and I was loving life at the great deal I purchased only to suffer sticker shock at the cost of hotels in Reykjavik when $200/night looked like the norm.

And this leads me back to my last blog entry about St. Regis hotels appearing on SkyAuction.com. The bright spot for travelers being squeezed by inflation from all sides is the trend towards shifting hotel inventory back to the auction and prepaid sites like Hotwire, Priceline, SkyAuction, and LuxuryLink.

The hotels can sit half-empty or some inventory can be moved through the prepaid channels. This can mean some incredible deals for the watchful traveler.

This loyalty traveler has no qualms in passing on the points and upgrade if a room can be purchased for $200/night less than otherwise available.

I do have another suggestion for hotel loyalty programs to appease customers who may jump ship in the face of escalating prices and tightening travel budgets.

InterContinental Hotels Group PointBreaks are an incredible deal for a room at teh rate of 5,000 points per night. The available properties change frequently and limited room inventory is available for these great loyalty program awards using hotel points.

Starwood expanded their Cash & Points award offers to cover most hotels around the world.

The two offers above are limited and controlled by the hotel and loyalty program, but when a traveler is able to get one of these deals using hotel points the savings can often be more than $100/night.

Hilton and Marriott can expand their PointStretcher and PointSaver opportunities to cover more hotels.
Hilton's PointStretcher program has been weak due to limited hotel participation and limited dates for PointStretcher awards for several years now.
Hyatt can continue to offer some of the best loyalty program promotions available and they might not need to introduce reduced award offers, but I would like to see something from that chain to offer reduced cost awards using hotel points for rooms.

The hotel loyalty programs could be key to keeping hotel occupancy from suffering a more severe decline as prices continue to outpace inflation (unless the industry escalates inventory turned over to third-party online travel agencies like Priceline and SkyAuction).

Buy gas for work or buy gas for vacation? Pay for a hotel room or pay the mortgage?
The consumer is being squeezed from all sides in this economy and if the hotel industry continues to squeeze us for more profits, the money just might dry up.

St. Regis on Skyauction.com

A Starwood St. Regis suite, San Francisco
SPG Category 6
20,000 points/night low-season
25,000 points/night peak season


A sign of the times?

St. Regis on LuxuryLink.com I would have anticipated, but luxury at a discount through SkyAuction was not a "For Sale" I envisioned.

Wednesday, March 5 had a Skyauction listing for a per night bid, for up to a 7-night stay at the St. Regis San Francisco. This hotel property occasionally drops to $299 per night during the slowest weeks of the year. San Francisco has a 14% hotel tax meaning the lowest nightly rate possible through a regular booking is payment of $340/night out the door, after taxes, if you don't park a car or charge any other goodies.

An SPG member could earn as few as 598 Starpoints/night at 2 Starpoints/$1 status. Gold member earn 897 Starpoints. Platinum member might have 1,397 Starpoints with platinum amenity 500 points.

600 Starpoints has a value of $21 if purchased. A person without elite status and no expectation of going for elite status will really only gain $21 extra value for a regular stay booked through Starwood channels.

Skyauction is a generally good website for getting great deals on last-minute 7-night condo timeshare stays. I have booked a half-dozen hotel stays through Skyauction going back 8 years to 2000 when I picked up my first 7-night timeshare stay for $214 at the Samoset Resort in Maine (regular rates were $1,500/week).

St. Regis San Francisco, winning bid was $253 per night with a $65 fee to be paid directly to the hotel (+14% tax on this $65?) . The rate of $318 is a savings of about $22 per night on the lowest available rate I have seen at this property over the past couple years.

A 5-night stay at the St. Regis San Francisco for March 28 to April 2, 2008 is listed as $404/night for a nonrefundable rate. There is a $413 refundable AAA rate. The 5-night refundable rate is $2,356 for a paid reservation through Starwood websites.

A 5-night stay using the special SPG 25% discount weblink: St. Regis is not listed as available for this special offer.

Skyauction = $318/night x 5 nights = $1,590 and a savings of $766 for a 5-night stay.

But don't count on getting the St. Regis for a low bid under $100. There is a minimum reserve which is somewhere around $200 bid. (Presently, A $162 bid for St. Regis Ft. Lauderdale has not met minimum reserve.)

St. Regis Ft. Lauderdale is available on Skyauction for bids closing on Sunday, March 9, 1:00pm EDT.

Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay: Public Exclusivity, California-Style

Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, California

Available as a Marriott Rewards Partner Award

1 night = 70,000 points; 3-nights = 150,000 points;

5 nights = 200,000; 7-nights = 250,000 points

Paradise with an Ocean View

Some people have an image in their heads of California Pacific Ocean views. The Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay has commanding views of the coastline and ocean. This resort, nestled between golf links, on the cliffs south of the small coastal town of Half Moon Bay, is about 45 minutes drive south from San Francisco.

Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay is oceanfront resort hotel living. Golf, martinis, and Pacific Ocean cliff top weddings. And with a Safeway just a mile down the road, you can even cut some expenses, if you are so inclined.

The half-mile road from Pacific Coast Highway 1 to the coastal resort had a sign that caught my attention. Past the long-settled mobile home park on the left and the newly built gated community luxury homes on the right, the road sign pointed one direction for coastal access parking, but it also stated 25 public Coastal Access parking spaces available at Ritz-Carlton resort. I drove to the hotel gate and inquired. The young guy took my license plate number and gave me an access code to the Ritz-Carlton parking garage gate. I drove in to the open-air, multi-level garage and parked in a space labeled “Coastal Access”. Hotel guests pay $45 + 10% tax per day to park here in the same garage.

What’s up with that?

This is California, baby. Land of the voter initiative whereby the public is supposed to have a voice in the rules we live by. Back in 1972, the voters passed Prop 20, the Coastal Access initiative.

California had a population of about 16 million people when I was born in 1960. The population was over 20 million by 1972 when California voters passed Prop 20, a voter initiative to maintain public access to the coast.

It is said that Governor Jerry Brown in 1976, stayed in a hotel in Monterey built directly on the beach (I assume the hotel being referenced is now the Best Western Beach Resort Monterey). He commented, “That’s why we need a Coastal Act: so we can have more places like this.” “No,” said Bill Press, Brown’s director of planning and research. “We need a Coastal Act so we won’t have more places like this.” http://www.scc.ca.gov/coast&ocean/winter2004/pages/one.html

There seemed to me to be very little development along the Central Coast of California in the 1980s. Back in 1991, I traveled along the California coast for about 1,000 miles from San Diego to Eureka. California's population had topped 30 million by 1991 and had doubled in the 31 years since I was born.

In the past month, I have driven the coast roads from Orange County to San Francisco.

There has been a noticeably sizable coastal housing boom in the past 17 years. California's population is estimated to be somewhere around 36 to 37 million in 2008. What would our coastline look like if the people had not initiated legislation for public access in the early 1970s?

The basic provision of coastal access, according to the California Coastal Commission fact sheet, that applies to the slew of hotel resorts popping up on the California coast in the past decade is:

"On sites with coastal development permit proposals, where investigation shows that public use is substantial enough to create potential prescriptive rights, the Coastal Commission is required to protect those areas of use prior to approving a development project that would interfere with those rights.

The California Coastal Act, Public Resources Code Section 30211, states:

Development shall not interfere with the public’s right of access to the sea where acquired through use, or legislative authorization, including, but not limited to, the use of dry sand and rocky coastal beaches to the first line of terrestrial vegetation."

A feature of several California resorts built directly on the coast in the past 15 years is an improvement of access to the coast for people who want to look at the beach and sea, but not necessarily be on it. Public access visitors can share the grounds of the hotel with the guests.

The St. Regis Half Moon Bay is a beautiful property with incredible views of the California coastline (if you are lucky enough to be visiting on a day without fog or clouds.)

This is hotel coastal resort living California-style where tourist visitors can mingle with local Californians exercising the right to coastal access.

EuroCheapo.com site and blog - I've been there!

I was checking out train schedules in Austria and thinking about Vienna. Made a search and came across EuroCheapo blog on Austrian rail train specials.

The blog is an entertaining read as the bloggers are currently in Berlin. The blog led me to the EuroCheapo website which is a great niche resource for bargain travel planning in Europe.

Their Cheap Flight Finder has low-fare airline links and provides a useful tool and resource for flights around Europe. The website design to "Find an Airline by Country" is a useful planning feature allowing users to search for low-cost European airlines by country. I have spent many hours in the past trying to figure out what low cost airline travels from a city like Prague or Berlin when I was trying to piece together budget travel between several European cities.

The hotel listings cover 22 or so cities in Europe with reviews hundreds of budget-priced hotels and lodging options that have been looked over by a member of the team.

Great resource for finding ways to save your travel dollars when heading over to Europe.

http://www.eurocheapo.com/

I put this website in my favorites.

Spring Break or Spring Broke?

An article appeared today in PR Newswire for Journalists, Economy Foreclosing on Spring Break?, based on a survey by AccessAmerica, a travel insurance company. “Access America survey finds half of American families scaling back spring break plans...or forgoing their vacations altogether”

The not-so-surprising conclusion of the data is poorer families are cutting back on vacation spending this March 2008. The website says the full report is available upon request.

My observation, as someone who has traveled nearly every Easter to Europe for the past ten years, is airfare to Europe is dirt cheap right now for long-haul travel this Spring 2008. The fares are comparable or lower than commonly available fares at Easter time since 2000. Airfare is probably near a record low right now for purchasing trans-Atlantic travel in just 14 days or so from today.

I have seen fares from Monterey, San Francisco, and Los Angeles hovering around $500 all-in to Frankfurt and London. The fare was $541 Monterey to Frankfurt last week, 21 days before Easter travel. I think that airfare has to be near the record low over the past five years for a ticket purchase from Monterey this close to Easter. There were flights costing less from Monterey to Europe than San Francisco to Europe. The flights route from Monterey to San Francisco and then on to Europe. $100/barrel oil doesn’t seem to have much of an impact on airfare prices.

I commented a couple of months ago that trans-Atlantic travel was down 2006 to 2007 year-over-year. American Airlines reports February passenger loads have increased to Europe. The low prices are getting people across the ocean, but are you prepared for the $7.00 Coca-Cola and $18 fishs & chips pub tab?

Hotel Tips from the Loyalty Traveler –
Planning a Spring Break European hotel stay?

Here are links to some of the best hotel opportunities for a lower-cost trip. I provide a hotel sample, but there are many choices of hotels and locations offering these reduced hotel stay awards. And there is good news for those of you not banking enough points at the moment for a free hotel stay this Spring trip. Hotel points can be purchased and there is a possibility you can save money by just purchasing the hotel points you need to book a free hotel stay.

Hilton Point Stretchers and London.

Hilton London Canary Wharf has PointStretcher dates from March 16-28 and May 1-7. This 40,000 HHonors point/night Category 6 hotel can be booked for 24,000/points/night with an HHonors Point Stretcher reservation.

HHonors members can buy 40,000 HHonors points in a calendar year. Purchases of 10,000 points reduce the price to $10/1,000 points.

Hilton London Canary Wharf can be booked for 24,000 points. If you don’t already have the points, you can buy 24,000 points for $240.

March 20, 2008 rate check of Hilton London Canary Wharf
The nightly rate ranges from $454 low to $500+ for most rooms. This would be a high value use of a PointStretcher night, if you could get a reservation. In contrast, the Friday night rate at the London Canary Wharf is under $175/night.
S
ample trip for a couple: Each person purchase 24,000 Hilton HHonors points and redeem for one free Point Stretcher night ($480 total cost). Pay for two weekend nights when rates drop to about $175/night from the $400 to $500 midweek rates. Friday and Saturday night will cost $350. Four nights at the Hilton Canary Wharf London for a little over $200/night.

Other HHonors Point Stretcher hotel opportunities

Marriott PointSavers
Marriott has several UK hotel properties available for Spring break trips at reduced points rates.

InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club PointBreaks

These awards are an unbeatable deal if you have a trip to a hotel location where IHG Priority Club is offering a PointBreaks award. The cost is only 5,000 points per night. Priority Club members can purchase 10,000 points for $100, up to 20,000 points per calendar year.

Sample Award night:
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Caserta, Italy (near Naples)
March 19-21, 2008 for 10,000 points (=$100 for 2-night stay)
Paid rate for a 2-night stay March 19-21, 2008 = 77EUR/night or $230 for 2-night stay.

Another incredible deal with IHG Priority Club is their Pay 2 Nights, Get 1 Free offer. Dozens of hotels in Europe are participating this Spring season. Check the link and search for a hotel.
Naples, Italy Holiday Inn for March 19-21 is only 45EUR/night. That is a budget saver.
If you are lucky you may save hundreds of dollars between this offer and a PointBreaks stay.

USA SPG Hotel Category Change Analysis

Four Points, Newark Airport
SPG Category 1
(1 of only 7 Category-1 hotels left in the USA -- A dying breed)

I stayed a Saturday night in June 2007 for 2,000 Starpoints at the Four Points EWR.

The hotel had a washer and dryer which was a treat after a week in South America.
The catch: I had to beg a housekeeper for laundry soap since the store in the hotel was two hours late for opening.

Loyalty Traveler tip: Don't walk around the neighborhood. I hadn't seen so much drug dealing on the streets since high school.



I completed my spreadsheet for USA SPG hotels and the hotel category shift since 2004. I have lots of thoughts and I am developing commentary to go with the data. The spreadsheet creation has taken time and I still have a variety of data sorts to make and a collection of notes.

The data shows points redemption is being aimed at squeezing most SPG members towards the middle. The shift from Category 1 and 2 hotels to Category-3 and Category-4 hotels is apparent in a comparison of the Hotel Category Shift trends over the past four years in SPG.

The luxury resorts are priced like luxury resorts in currency -- both cash and points, and if you're lucky you can find a reservation for SPG Cash & Points. Currently we have Category-7 SPG hotels requiring 60,000 points per night.

As if the devaluation of the American dollar were not enough of an impediment to Europe travel.
How about an increase for the Prince de Galles Paris from 12,000 points for a free night in 2004 to 30,000 points in 2008? But, only if you book in low season. High season raises the redemption rate to 35,000 points per night.

Category shift is having more effect on the cost of your hotel room than the Euro -- if you are planning to use your hard-earned hotel points for a vacation stay in Europe. A 150% increase, from 12,000 to 30,000 points for a free hotel night is a definite vacation shorter.

The future of SPG?

Newer, more exclusive resorts set up independent high-end redemption categories. The common feature is exclusivity, and likely relatively low value. The SPG loyalty program can market spin off exclusive category hotels geared to high credit card spenders. 150,000 points per award night using points for someone earning 3,000,000 points a year on credit card and partner activity will be a drop in the bucket. The business and leisure traveler piecing together hotel points from travel and perhaps a little credit card activity will have more limited high value free night opportunities.

The low points redemption hotel properties will be the next smallest bracket, offering just enough hotels to keep the brackets for Category 1 and 2 hotels open as a somewhat legitimate excuse for marketing the phrase “You’ll receive enough points for 3 free nights” on the credit card marketing flyers.

Location “Mosul, Iraq” will be revealed when you go to see what hotels you can get for Category-1 points. The impact hits international SPG members as hard, maybe even more. The best values tend to be moving to the USA. Is there a motive here?

Suggestions:
1. Maintain a high level of Cash & Points availability.
2. Replenish the properties among the categories to a more favorable distribution for consumers. While I don't advocate this solution, perhaps raise the point levels of Cat 1 (3,000 weekends; 4,000 weekdays) and Cat 2 (4,000 weekends; 5,000 weekdays) and Cat 3 (8,000).

For now, here is a preliminary analysis of SPG Hotel Category shift for USA hotels.

2008 USA
SPG has about 394 hotels in USA and territories.

Category-7 Hotels = 2 hotels (Key West, St. Regis NYC)

Category-6 Hotels = 13 hotels

(3 hotels moved up to Category-6 in 2008.
W New York, Westin St. John Resort, US Virgin Islands moved up one category while
the Le Meridien Beverly Hills jumped from Category-4 to Category-6.)

Category-5 Hotels = 45 hotels as of March 4, 2008
38 Hotels remain at Category-5 for 2008.
3 new hotels are being designated as category-5 hotels.
3 hotels increased from Category-4 to Category-5 in 2008
1 hotel dropped from Category 6 to Category-5
The decrease from Category-6 to 5 for Princeville Resort, Kauai is a major change for Hawaii lovers.

Category-4 Hotels = 113 hotels in USA for 2008
3 hotels are New Hotels
16 hotels are increasing from Cat 3 to Cat4
94 hotels remain at Cat 4

Category-3 Hotels = 131 hotels in USA for 2008
2 hotels are New Hotels
2 hotels decreased from Category-4 to Category-3
(Sheraton South Padre Island Texas, and Four Points Savannah Georgia
17 hotels increased from Category-2 to Category-3
110 hotels holding at Category- 3

Category-2 Hotels = 83 hotels in USA for 2008

3 hotels decreased from Category-3 to Category- 2 (2 in Orlando, 1 in Maryland, and 1 in Connecticut.)

4 hotels increased from Category-1 to Category-2. (One of these hotels, Four Points Fairview Heights, Illinois had been a Catategory-2 in 2004.)

76 hotels remained at Category-2


Category-1 Hotels = 7 hotels in USA for 2008

1 hotel decreased from a Category-2 to Category-1, (Four Points Chambersburg, Pennsylvania).

6 hotels remained at Category-1 and 5 of these hotels were Category-1 hotels in 2004
(1 Category-1 hotel is new to SPG since 2004, Four Points Kansas City Airport).

Shifts in SPG Hotel Categorization since 2004
The real shift is the proportion of hotels in each category.

2008 USA
SPG has about 394 hotels in USA and territories.
SPG had about 379 hotels in USA in 2004.
98 hotels from 2004 are no longer in SPG family. (Some of these may be the same property location, but were remodeled and/or rebranded. E.g. Four Points becomes a Sheraton.)

2008 Category-7 hotels = 2
2004 Category-7 hotels = 0 (There was no Category-7 in 2004.)

2008 Category-6 hotels = 13
2004 Category-6 hotels = 2

2008 Category-5 hotels = 45
2004 Category-5 hotels = 12

6 hotels at Cat-5 in 2004 remain at Cat-5
21 hotels at Cat-4 in 2004 are now Cat-5
4 hotels Cat-3 in 2004 are now Cat-5


2008 Category-4 hotels =113
2004 Category-4 hotels = 52

75 hotels or 66% of current Category-4 hotels were in SPG from 2004
18 hotels remain at Category-4 since 2004
56 hotels increased from Cat-3 to Cat-4 (10 of these just changed March 2008)
1 hotel increased from Cat-2 to Cat-4 since 2004


2008 Category-3 hotels =131
2004 Category-3 hotels = 103

94 hotels or 72% of current Category-3 hotels were in SPG in 2004

29 hotels remain at Cat-3 from 2004 to 2008
(Sheraton South Padre Island was Cat-3 in 2004, rose to Cat-4, and is dropping back to Cat-3 for 2008. Four Points Sheraton was Cat-3 in 2004, dropped to Cat-2, and is increasing back to Cat-3 for 2008.)

62 hotels increased from Cat-2 to Cat-3 between 2004 and 2008
1 hotel increased from Cat 1 to Cat 3 (Four Points PHL Airport)
2 hotels went from Cat-1 to Cat-3 (Both LAX airport area hotels)


2008 Category-2 hotels =83
2004 Category-2 hotels = 152

61 hotels or 73% of current Category-2 hotels were in SPG in 2004.
Changes are:
1 hotel in 2004 Sheraton Danbury Cat-3 is now Cat-2
1 hotel was Cat-2 in 2004, Cat-3 in 2007, and dropping back to Cat-2 for 2008 (Four Points Orlando Studio City)
42 hotels have held at Cat-2 (Four Points Fairview Heights, IL was Cat 2 in 2004, dropped to Cat 1, and is increasing back to Cat-2 for 2008)
17 hotels increased from Cat-1 to Cat-2


2008 Category-1 hotels =7
2004 Category-1 hotels = 58

6 of the current Category-1 hotels were in SPG in 2004.
6 hotels Cat-1 in 2004 are still Cat-1 in 2008. Four Points Chambersburg, PA was up to Cat-2 and dropped back to Cat-1 for 2008.

Starwood Preferred Guest Hotel Category Shifts

I spent the weekend building a spreadsheet of the SPG Hotel Categories. I had a detailed SPG hotel spreadsheet I made in 2004 that made the work go much faster.

BlondeBomber's SPG spreadsheet had about 700 hotel rows hidden in the spreadsheet I downloaded. Too bad because that would have made the work go much more quickly. Ultimately, it is a better tool to have my spreadsheet and then I can compare with the BlondeBomber SPG spreadsheet when I can download a full file. This provides a good cross-check of data for both our tables.

I started out with just updating international hotels for 2008 changes. I went through SPG for each country and listed all hotels and cross-checked with the separate files for the March 4, 2008 Hotel Category changes webpages.

This process allowed a double check of hotels for the spreadsheet. Back in 2004, I found problems with the web pages of SPG and some properties would not appear on some of the Starwood web sites depending on search by category or country or city.


SPG International Hotels (Outside USA)
350 International Hotels from 2004 are Still in SPG in 2008

65 Category-1 Hotels
82 Category-2 Hotels
75 Category-3 Hotels
48 Category-4 Hotels
10 Category-5 Hotels
7 Category-6 Hotels
______
350 hotels remain in SPG in 2008 from 2004.
About 38% of hotels in SPG were hotel members 4 years ago.
350/938=0.3731

One Step Up, Two Steps Back -- Not at SPG!

Out of 350 hotels, there are only 3 hotels with a lower category in 2008 (1%) compared to 2004.

1. Westin San Luis Potosi, Mexico from Category-3 to Category-2.
2. Luxury Collection, Hotel Imperial, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from Category-3 to Category-2
3. Sheraton Sana'a, Yemen from Category-2 to Category-1.


65 Category-1 hotels in 2008 were in SPG in 2004.
18 are still Category-1 (28%)
19 increased to Category-2 (39%)
22 increased to Category-3 (34%)
6 increased to Category-4 (9%)

81 Category-2 hotels in 2008 were in SPG in 2004
5 remain at Category-2 (6%)
43 increased to Category-3 (53%)
27 increased to Category-4 (33%)
6 increased to Category-5 (7%)

65 Category-3 Hotels in 2008 were in SPG in 2004
2 decreased to Category-2 (3%)
12 remain at Category-3 in 2008 (18%)
43 increased to Category-4 (66%)
8 increased to Category-5 (12%)

49 Category-4 Hotels in 2008 were in SPG in 2004
10 remain at Category-4 in 2008 (20%)
31 increased to Category-5 (63%)
8 increased to Category-6 (16%)

10 Category-5 Hotels in 2008 were in SPG in 2004
1 remains at Category-5 in 2008 (10%)
5 increased to Category-6 (50%)
4 increased to Category-7 (40%)

7 Category-6 Hotels in 2008 were in SPG in 2004
remain at Category-6 in 2008 (0%)
7 increased to Category-7 (100%)

Logically, where does this lead hotel categorization in the future if hotels only go up in category?

A fundamental question needs to be addressed whether all hotels can continually improve category status or whether the entire family of hotels is evaluated against each other to set up an allocation of hotels distributed within the categories of the SPG program.