PKF Consulting has come up with a forecast for the hospitality industry for 2005.

Most U.S. hotel owners, operators, and analysts (our firm included) expect the industry growth experienced in 2004 to continue in 2005. Barring a catastrophic event, the Summer 2004 edition of our Hotel Outlook calls for a 6.8 percent increase in RevPAR in 2005. This is the result of a projected 2.6 percent gain in occupancy and a 4.1 percent increase in ADR.

With expenses rising at a lesser pace than profits, hotels should have a pretty good year, PKF seems to conclude.

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Kudos to the Treasure Mountain Inn Hotel & Conference Center in Park City, Utah, for becoming (the press release says) the first hotel to join 1% Percent For The Planet, an alliance of businesses committed to leveraging their resources to create a healthier planet (BTW, it was co-founded by clothing outfitter Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, a noted environmentalist). According to the press release:

Members recognize their responsibility to and dependence on a healthy environment and pledge to donate at least 1% of their annual revenues to environmental organizations. TMI and 1% FTP share the goal of proving that environmental responsibility is good for business.

Among the measures the hotel is taking:

This week’s Promo Xtra e-newsletter has the scoop on Holiday Inn’s new spin on towel thieves: amnesty for a cause.

The hotel chain plays up guests’ propensity to pinch its iconic green-striped towel in a new book About the Towels, We Forgive You: Absorbing Tales of Borrowed Towels. The coffee table book traces Holiday Inns’ history through stories from guests who have “borrowed” its towels. Holiday Inn will donate proceeds of the book’s sales to non-profit Give Kids the World, a resort for seriously ill children.

Holiday Inn held a Towel Amnesty Day in August 2003, donating $1 to Give Kids the World for every story that past guests told about how they used a purloined towel. Holiday Inn collected thousands of stories; the Atlanta-based chain chose several to publish as a second fundraiser for Give Kids the World. Spellbinders, Memphis, TN, produced the book.

The book sells online at Holiday-inn.com/towels for $25 The first thousand people who buy the book get a limited-edition Holiday Inn hand towel. Guests also can tell their own story on the site to trigger a $1 donation to the children’s charity.

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That’s what the airlines seem to be running on these days, according to eTurbo News.

Three of the nation’s largest airlines reported a combined $906 million in third-quarter losses on Wednesday. The largest by far was at Delta Air Lines Inc., where bankruptcy looms unless it can quickly win concessions from its pilots and debt holders.

So I guess it’s no surprise that American Airlines is putting back those seats it took out a few years ago to give us economy passengers a roomier ride. “Times have changed, and we must acknowledge that in today’s low-fare environment, having fewer seats on our aircraft has put us at a real revenue disadvantage compared to other airlines,” AMR chairman and chief executive Gerard Arpey said in a statement.

*Sigh* I’ll miss that extra legroom.

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I posted a while back on how someone actually figured out a mathematical formula to predict the likelihood of Murphy’s Law (whatever can go wrong, will) happening in any given situation.

So, as I read the New Yorker magazine during commercials as I watched The Game last night, imagine my surprise to find that enterprising writer Ben McGrath actually applied the formula to the Red Sox’s chances of winning against the Yankees last night without Mr. Murphy stepping up to the plate. On a scale of 1 to 9, he put gave the Sox a Murphy’s Law score of 7.4.

All I can say, very maturely of course, is neener, neener, neener!!

OK, I’ll get back to work now, but there is much joy in Beantown today. And I’m not even a big sports fan. Hmmm, wouldn’t it be interesting if we end up having not one but two Massachusetts-/Texas-based opponents facing off this fall…

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