Latest news: Kerzner buys in Miami; Northstar buys 2 in Florida; Rosewood debuts in Dubai

Kerzner buys Miami site. Hong Kong’s Swire Properties has reportedly sold its nearly 1-acre Miami development site to Dubai-based Kerzner International for $45 million. The site at Brickell City Centre has been approved for 350 residential units and 180 hotel rooms. With the latest transaction, Swire Properties has completed the sale of all of the condo, hotel, office and retail developed at Brickell City Centre, as well as two adjacent properties that it had held.

Northstar Hotels acquires 2 in Florida. Orlando-based Northstar Hotels Management has acquired the 78-key Residence Inn Jacksonville Airport and the 81-key Courtyard Jacksonville Airport Northeast in Florida from an institutional seller for an undisclosed amount. Hunter Hotel Advisors brokered the sale of both hotels, which will both be renovated.

Biggest hotel sale in Australia. Thailand-based KS Hotels has acquired the 245-key Park Hyatt Melbourne from Beijing-based Fu Wah International for more than AU$200 million ($129.5 million), which is the biggest hotel sale in Australia so far this year. Fu Wah acquired the hotel in 2014 for approximately AU$135 million.

Farpoint adds in Indiana. Chicago-based Farpoint Development is opening a Renaissance Hotel in Michigan City, Indiana. The 240-key Renaissance Hotel at SoLa will be the hospitality anchor of the SoLa development in the city. Construction on the development is planned to begin in January and take approximately two years to be completed.

Rosewood debuts in Dubai. Hong Kong-based Rosewood Hotels & Resorts will debut in Dubai with the 2029 opening of the 195-key Rosewood Dubai and Rosewood Residences Dubai. The property in Peninsula Dubai will include eight private villas, a private beach and beach clubs and four F&B options.

Stonebridge adds CDO. Denver-based Stonebridge has appointed Kevin Dingle as chief development Officer. With over two decades of hotel real estate experience, Dingle joins Stonebridge from Aimbridge, where he was senior vice president of development and acquisitions. Before joining Aimbridge, Dingle co-founded Compass Lodging Advisors and also worked at Crow Holdings.

Ryman earnings. Nashville-based REIT Ryman Hospitality reported all-time quarterly record consolidated revenue of $659.5 million, driven by its hospitality segment revenue of $516.2 million as part of its second-quarter earnings. For its hospitality sector, occupancy was up 0.3% year-over-year while ADR (-0.6%) and RevPAR (-1.2%) were slightly down YOY.  Ryman completed the acquisition of the 950-key JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge & Spa in Arizona during the second quarter. Analyst Patrick Scholes of Truist Securities said there were not many surprises in the REIT’s Q2 earnings. “Full-year same-store hospitality adjusted EBITDAre guide is coming down about 0.5% due to RevPAR pressures on the transient-leisure customer in Nashville due to new hotel supply/competition,” he said. “Going into earnings we believed if guide were going to come down it would have been from pressure from group attrition, which is not the case here. Notably, attrition levels in the quarter were fairly stable year-over-year… the company noted that group business on the books for 2026 and beyond remains healthy.”

Extended-stay hotels performing better. RevPAR for the overall U.S. hotel industry gained 0.8% during the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 according to STR/CoStar. However, luxury and upper upscale segments, which include negligible extended-stay hotel rooms, drove the increase. Upscale, mid-price and economy hotel segments reported declining RevPAR for the year to date and the contractions were greater than corresponding classes of extended-stay hotels. “Similar to 2020, in 2025 extended-stay hotels have incurred lower RevPAR declines than corresponding classes of all hotels especially at the economy level,” said The Highland Group's Mark Skinner.

Meliá takes over Cuban hotel. Palma, Spain-based Meliá Hotels International has added a new asset to its portfolio in Cuba by taking control the 162-key Hotel Gran Bristol, which was formerly managed by Kempinski, according to Excelencias Cuba. The hotel reopened in July under the new management contract.

Small-, medium-sized firms traveling more. Higher rates of business growth at small and midsized companies corresponded with higher rates of business travel — and not necessarily customer-facing travel, according to a report published on Monday by American Express Global Business Travel and U.K. market research firm Ipsos. For the report, Ipsos surveyed 800 U.S. and U.K. business leaders at SMEs, defined in the report as businesses with 10 to 250 employees in the U.K. and 20 to 500 employees in the United States. Those companies that had at least 5% year-over-year growth in revenue or turnover in 2024 and projected the same for this year were identified as "growth leaders." In the U.S., that represented 41% of respondents, and in the U.K., 36% of respondents were growth leaders. Among those growth leaders, 66% said they had sent employees on an international business trip within the past year, prior to the survey's interview window of Jan. 22 through 27. Among the "follower" companies with lower growth rates, only 52% said they had sent employees on international business trips within the past year.