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Hyatt's Inclusive Collection makes its Aruba debut

Hyatt's Inclusive Collection makes its Aruba debut

Travel Weeklya day ago

Hyatt's Inclusive Collection has planted its first flag in Aruba with the debut of the adults-only Secrets Baby Beach Aruba.
Situated along Baby Beach Bay on Aruba's southeastern coast, the 304-room all-inclusive features accommodations with private balconies or terraces as well as Preferred Club-level suites that offer access to private pools, butler service and a dedicated lounge with concierge services.
The resort's culinary program features four a la carte restaurants, including a Pan-Asian dining venue and a South American-inspired fusion concept. Other food and beverage options include a buffet, a cafe, a grill and six bars and lounges.
The property also features multiple pools, including two infinity pools; a 3,200-square-foot spa; and 2,569 square feet of meetings space.
The Secrets Baby Beach Aruba joins the Inclusive Collection's stable of more than 140 all-inclusive resorts across 10 brands globally.

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Mission Chinese Founder Takes Surprise Gig at Buddakan
Mission Chinese Founder Takes Surprise Gig at Buddakan

Eater

timean hour ago

  • Eater

Mission Chinese Founder Takes Surprise Gig at Buddakan

Nearly two decades after pan-Asian clubstaurant Buddakan made its flashy Meatpacking District debut, Starr Restaurant Group is turning to a big-name chef to reinvent it. Mega-restaurateur Stephen Starr tapped Danny Bowien, of Mission Chinese Food fame, 'to revitalize the menu at Buddakan and give it a fresh look,' a Starr rep tells Eater. The team declined to say whether Bowien is a newly named co-owner or partner, as 'it's still in extremely early development stages.' The Substack Feed Me first flagged Bowien's incoming involvement this week. Bowien is best known for his San Francisco-born smash hit Mission Chinese, which expanded to New York in 2012 to instant acclaim. Subsequent locations followed on the Lower East Side and Bushwick. The restaurant group's reputation took a turn after employees repeatedly alleged a range of misconduct at the LES location, including racial discrimination as well as physical and verbal abuse. In 2022, Mission Chinese pulled out of NY completely. Bowien's neon-lit millennial magnet made a surprise NY comeback last spring, this time in the heart of Chinatown, as a nighttime residency inside Cha Kee (43 Mott Street, at Bayard Street). What started as a pop-up is now a permanent operation, complete with longstanding Mission Chinese favorites like chile-blasted Chongqing chicken wings, kung pao pastrami, and other inventive takes on Sichuan cuisine through his Chinese American lens. The 15-year-old original in San Francisco's Mission District is still open today (though under new ownership). It remains unclear how Bowien plans to zhuzh Buddakan's existing menu full of dim sum, sizzling short ribs, and Beijing duck. Choosing to align with a cash-cow conglomerate of a company like Starr is relatively surprising, considering Bowien's keep-it-tight approach to the restaurant world. Like Mission Chinese, Buddakan has also dealt with past allegations of discrimination and a toxic work culture. Starting as a single location in Philadelphia in 1988, Buddakan grew into a mini empire at its height, with locations in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. The Meatpacking District location opened in 2006 and, backed by an early two-star review from the New York Times , was an immediate hit. In Manhattan at that time, Buddakan was 'a hipper, younger, clubbier analogue to older, expensive, white tablecloth venues,' former Eater critic Ryan Sutton wrote in a 2015 review. See More: Coming Attractions NYC Restaurant News

Chicago seeing fewer international travelers, but local hotels still expect ‘solid' summer
Chicago seeing fewer international travelers, but local hotels still expect ‘solid' summer

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Chicago seeing fewer international travelers, but local hotels still expect ‘solid' summer

The number of international guests staying at Chicago hotels is down amid tensions between the Trump administration and other nations, and economic uncertainty is discouraging business travel. But local hoteliers say they still expect a busy summer, thanks in part to a tourism calendar that relies heavily on domestic leisure travelers coming in for events like Lollapalooza and July's two-day NASCAR Chicago Street Race. 'It's true we're seeing a drop in foreign inbound travelers, but the drop is not significant,' said Maverick Hotels and Restaurants CEO Robert Habeeb, the proprietor of the 223-room Sable at Navy Pier. Government-related travel is also down after months of spending cuts by the administration of President Donald Trump, Habeeb said. 'But in the summer, it's leisure, leisure, leisure and most of these folks will show up. It's going to be a solid summer,' he said. The decline in international travelers to Chicago is difficult to measure, as hotels generally don't report statistics on guests' country of origin, said Brian Arevalo, managing director with HVS, a consultant for the hospitality industry. 'But it has been noticed and it's something we're hearing a lot about from hotel operators,' he said. Andrew Eck, general manager of L7 Chicago By LOTTE, a 191-room hotel at 225 N. Wabash Ave., said summer bookings from Canadians were off by about 25% compared with 2024. The number of Asian guests at the hotel, which carries a Seoul-based brand, seems steady, he said. Overall, the summer is shaping up to be a busy one, Eck said. 'Because we were under construction for part of the year in 2024, we are seeing growth that's off the charts. We could sell out every single day this summer.' It's already been a solid year. Healthy attendance at some conventions held at the McCormick Convention Center, along with blockbuster events, including Beyoncé's three-night, sold-out 'Cowboy Carter' extravaganza in May at Soldier Field, kept Chicago hotels ahead of their 2024 pace. About 1.3 million people are expected to attend McCormick Center events in 2025, according to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the municipal corporation also known as McPier, which owns McCormick Center. That's still far below pre-pandemic numbers, when the venue typically attracted between 2 million and 2.9 million visitors. But some conventions are close to full recoveries, said McPier CEO Larita Clark. The International Manufacturing Technology Show attracted almost 90,000 visitors last year, compared with the more than 100,000 seen pre-COVID. In March, ProMat 2025, a manufacturing and supply chain convention, brought about 52,000 to McCormick Center. 'That show set a new attendance record,' Clark said. Chicago hotel occupancy hit 65.6% in April, up from 64.6% last April, while the average daily rate for a room increased from $150.96 to $157.89, a 4.6% bump, according to CoStar data. 'We are ahead of where we were last year,' said Kiara Felfle, director of sales at The Robey Chicago, an 89-room boutique hotel in the Wicker Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side. 'Beyoncé's concerts were a record-breaking time for us as far as occupancy goes.' The Robey Chicago, which opened in 2016 in the landmark Northwest Tower, anticipates a stream of customers this summer, many headed to the neighborhood's many street festivals and small music venues. 'Chicago really shines in the summer, so it's a big time for us, and this year will be no different,' she said. Choose Chicago launches new marketing campaign: Never Done. Never Outdone. The Trump administration tightened border controls and began imposing on-again, off-again tariffs on many nations this year, including Canada and China, souring relations and leading some travelers to cancel U.S. trips. 'While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the 'closed' sign,' said World Travel & Tourism Council CEO Julia Simpson in May. The council estimates international visitor spending in the U.S. will decline from $181 billion in 2024 to $169 billion this year, 22% lower than the peak year of 2019. Early summer bookings by Canadians were already down more than 20% year-over-year, with March visits from the United Kingdom falling 15%, and German travelers declining by 28%. Chicago hotels should be able to absorb the hit. The city attracted 55 million total visitors in 2024, according to Choose Chicago, the city's tourist agency. About 2 million were international travelers, so if the city sees fewer people from overseas this year, domestic tourists may fill the gap. 'Based on our monthly projections that are tracking 3-4% higher year-over-year, and with recent record-breaking weekends for hotel occupancy as well as several conferences that are setting records for attendance and room blocks, we are expecting a slight increase in our summer hotel occupancy over 2024,' Choose Chicago CEO Kristen Reynolds said in a statement. Juan Leyva, general manager of the 452-room LondonHouse Chicago at 85 E. Wacker Drive, said the hotel will shift its summer marketing strategy, hopefully making up for any international losses by bringing more guests in from Indianapolis, Detroit and other domestic markets, especially for the Lollapalooza and NASCAR weekends. 'We are on a good pace for Lollapalooza, slightly ahead of last year,' Leyva said. 'Being a drive-in event, it doesn't really depend on international travel.' Chicago's cold and rainy spring led many tourists to book rooms at the last minute and was probably a bigger concern than the decline in international travel, he said. 'We're finally getting summer, but it did take a long time,' he said. 'When all is said and done, we expect to be in line with last year, and maybe a little bit ahead.'

3 Dividend Stocks With High but Shaky Yields That Are Probably Going to Get Cut
3 Dividend Stocks With High but Shaky Yields That Are Probably Going to Get Cut

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

3 Dividend Stocks With High but Shaky Yields That Are Probably Going to Get Cut

This closed-end fund's net asset value continues to decline, making its distribution appear increasingly untenable. Whirlpool faces significant near-term pressure, and a dividend cut would help ease that. UPS' free cash flow may not cover its dividend in 2025, and there are more effective uses for its cash flow, such as investing in its growth initiatives. 10 stocks we like better than United Parcel Service › With respective dividend or distribution yields of 14.7%, 8.3%, and 6.6%, these three investments could provide an investor with an aggregate yield of 9.9% if purchased together. However, I think that the closed-end Guggenheim Strategic Opportunities Fund (NYSE: GOF), the home appliance company Whirlpool (NYSE: WHR), and UPS (NYSE: UPS) are likely to reduce their dividends or distributions to investors. Furthermore, in two of the cases, doing so would make them stronger companies. Here's why. This is a closed-end fund, meaning it doesn't raise new capital from investors; but it can use debt to generate returns for them. It trades on the market like a stock, and it makes monthly distributions (rather like dividends). The fund has a superb record of making distributions to investors, having maintained them for over a decade. But here's the thing: The fund's net investment income hasn't covered its distribution for the last seven years, and over the previous six years, the fund has used its capital to make distributions. This is to the detriment of its net asset value (NAV), which has declined every year since 2018, and now stands at $11.50. Meanwhile, the fund has effectively increased its leverage to boost its investment income. This isn't a sustainable path, yet the market is pricing it at a 28.5% premium to its NAV. Go figure. The home appliance company is one of the most interesting stocks on the market. Management believes it will benefit from the Trump tariffs and the administration's approach to defending American manufacturing interests, not least by closing a loophole that allows Asian competitors to use Chinese steel in their products and thereby avoid tariffs on it. That may be the case, and it is good news for Whirlpool and its competitive positioning. Still, the company must navigate ongoing weakness in the housing market, which is unlikely to improve until mortgage rates decrease from their relatively high level. High rates discourage home sales, which hurt the higher-margin discretionary appliance sales that Whirlpool needs to boost its earnings. d And the recent easing of the trade conflict may encourage competitors to increase imports to the U.S. as they did in the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, ahead of any tariffs imposed by the new regime. It all adds up to an uncertain near-term environment for Whirlpool, and its earnings and cash flow guidance could be under threat. The annual dividend currently uses up $390 million in cash, and management expects $500 million to $600 million in free cash flow (FCF) in 2025. However, it has $1.85 billion in debt maturing in 2025 and plans to pay down $700 million of it through refinancing, with the amount ranging from $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion. Those plans could come under threat if the company misses guidance, and I think that could happen in the current environment. Alongside Whirlpool, UPS will be a better investment if and when it cuts its dividend. The company began the year with management estimating that it would generate $5.7 billion in FCF while paying $5.5 billion in dividends and expecting to make $1 billion in share buybacks. Then, in late April, the impact of tariffs on the economy began to take effect. And management declined to affirm its full-year guidance on the first-quarter earnings call, implying that its FCF guidance is under threat. Furthermore, there's the added complication of UPS deliberately reducing its lower-margin delivery volumes by 50% from 2024 to the second half of 2026. The company's dividend is under threat, and even if management elects to maintain it, there's a powerful argument to say it shouldn't. As previously discussed, the company's investments in technology and refocusing its network on higher-margin and more productive deliveries (such as in the healthcare and small and medium-size business markets) imply that its return on equity (RoE) will improve. That would be a significant plus. Still, it would be an even bigger plus if management could allocate more of its earnings to invest in the business at a higher rate of RoE, rather than using up a significant portion of its cash flow and earnings on dividend payments. A dividend cut would help free up cash for productive investment that would add value for shareholders. Before you buy stock in United Parcel Service, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and United Parcel Service wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $657,871!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $875,479!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 998% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 174% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and United Parcel Service. The Motley Fool recommends Whirlpool. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Dividend Stocks With High but Shaky Yields That Are Probably Going to Get Cut was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio

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