Hotel News Resource - Forbes Hotel Industry News

Google's $700 million acquisition of ITA Software, announced on July 1, has left many wondering how ITA's clients are going to survive. ITA, based in Boston, provides software that handles information about airline flights and fares and times, and it's used by airlines, travel agencies and websites like Orbitz, Kayak and Bing. Will Google blow them all out of the sky?

As businesses keep scaling back, hotel companies are taking it easier on clients planning large events. The changes are hard to quantify because discounts are based on negotiable rates, but here's a look at deals some major companies are offering and how their events business is doing.

Increasingly, hotels and getaways are all about the x factor

Most lodging stocks mostly fell on Monday after a Barclays Capital analyst lowered her target price for three hotel companies to reflect declining travel trends and a worse-than-expected 2009 forecast from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc.

Shares of hotel real estate investment trusts fell sharply in afternoon trading on Monday, one trading day after Ashford Hospitality Trust Inc. became the latest REIT to suspend its dividend to preserve cash.

Shares of hotel real estate investment trusts dropped further on Monday amid a global market sell-off, after a gloomy forecast by Marriott International Inc. last week heightened investors' worries about the already-battered industry.

Shares of hotel companies dropped on Monday - and plunged further after the House rejected a $700 billion bailout of the U.S. financial system - as the travel outlook for 2009 grew gloomier amid the escalating economic crisis.

The number of overnight stays in Spanish hotels rose year-on-year in July after a drop the previous month, official data showed on Friday.

The hotel industry started more than a century ago when stagecoach outposts gave overland travelers a refuge from the elements--and little else. Nowadays, however, five-star properties offer well-heeled guests spa treatments, personal butlers and even room service for pets.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. reported a better-than-expected 16.4 percent drop in second-quarter profit Thursday, although the stock fell after Starwood cut its full-year outlook, citing a weakening U.S. market.