The hotel sector is coming back slowly in the United States, led by business travelers, but the majority of the growth in the full-service hotel market is overseas, said Bill Marriott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Marriott International at ULI’s Fall Meeting. Marriott described how his firm is adapting to changing market conditions and shared his views on U.S. policies affecting the business community. Read a summary of the key topics he touched on.

As the hospitality industry starts to recover from the low point it reached over the past couple of years, some trends have emerged that show changes in consumer preferences -- particularly at the ultra-luxury level -- that will likely dominate the industry for years to come. Read about the trends in hospitality planning and design as laid out by experts from Solage Hotels & Resorts; The West Paces Hotel Group; and, Marriott International, Inc.

Hotel fundamentals are improving as panic and capitulation give way to a slow-growth environment. Yet, the global response to the economic crisis threatens to yield to sovereign risk in Greece and Spain and undermine a gradual, nascent recovery. These were the major messages at the Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro conference Meet the Money: Unlocking the Game Changers for the Coming Recovery, held in early May in Los Angeles.

Trends are neither destiny nor gospel. They are guideposts identified from the collective experience of many professionals within an industry. In the resort, recreation, and tourism industry, numerous trends identified through experience and expectations are emerging to influence how and where people will buy and use resort real estate. Society is changing fast, and the economic conditions of the past two years have created much uncertainly. But what is discernible is that current trends are focused on valuedriven buyers, downsized purchases for personal use, and scalability.