Hotel Industry Is Hooked on Suites
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For the traveling businessperson (and the vacationing family as well), the suite hotel is an inviting option, offering a living room/bedroom combination at a price competitive with standard rates at most first-class hotels, according to Newmark. At Guest Quarters, a standard suite is $180 per night, and that includes a mini-bar, refrigerator, two telephones, a speaker phone, and two remote-control televisions. The hotel also offers a health club and two restaurants. So how do all-suite properties make it with fewer rooms, a wide range of services, and competitive pricing? “All-suite hotels traditionally have a higher occupancy,” explains Newmark. Most hotels in the Chicago area break even at average occupancy levels of around 65 percent. All-suite properties shoot for average occupancies 5 to 10 percent higher.
Nancy Drew’s Adventure in Retailing
The Body Politic Theatre is gearing up for the start of its 1990-’91 season, the first with newly installed artistic director Albert Pertalion, a former guest director and teacher at Purdue University. But it doesn’t appear that Pertalion is calling all the artistic shots at the theater. A source says that Body Politic producing director Nan Charbonneau has managed to inject herself and those close to her into the artistic action for the upcoming season. Charbonneau’s husband, Dick Kordos, will direct The Lion in Winter, the second play in Body Politic’s season, and Charbonneau herself is “under consideration,” according to Pertalion, to direct the third, The Belle of Amherst. “She’s concerned about the best choice of director for the piece,” adds Pertalion. Will the new artistic director do any more this season than acquiesce to insiders who itch to direct? Stay tuned.
Up From the Snuggery
