The Refinishing Touch Blog

As anyone in the industry will tell you, the financial crisis of 2008/2009 hit the hotel hard industry on two fronts. Firstly, custom took a sudden, steep dive. All of a sudden hotel owners had to cut rates to unprecedented levels just to keep up occupancy rates, and there weren’t enough customers to go round. And then, perhaps more seriously, capital all but dried up. All of a sudden financing for construction, refurbishments and overhauls was seriously hard to come by.

Fortunately, the hospitality industry finally seems to be getting a break. It’s early days, for sure, but there are signs that investors are returning and construction is beginning again. Growth is cautious, and concentrated on certain areas perceived as lower risk, but it’s a definite improvement on recent times. We’ve been seeing substantial activity across all our lines of business, and momentum is certainly growing.

So what can the industry expect? In the short term, higher service coverage ratios. Investors may be starting to return, but they’re understandably wary, and that translates into higher charges. Nevertheless, with some industry experts suggesting that RevRAR falls will bottom out in 2010 and then grow next year and beyond, investments look likely to return in force over time. Not to the levels of a decade ago, but enough that smart, customer-focused business owners can finance future growth and development. That’s something that we at The Refinishing Touch welcome along with others in our industry.

Labels: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, construction, hospitality industry

As more businesses and organizations work to become eco-friendly, a new technology promises to help buildings manage energy consumption and costs. Thermeleon roof tiles, developed by a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are designed to offset high heating and cooling expenses by changing colors like a chameleon. On cold days, such as in the winter when the sun is at its lowest impact, the tiles turn black to absorb what heat it can. On hot days, like in the summertime when the sun's heat is at its most intense, the tiles turn white to reflect heat.

The Thermeleon team, which won the third annual MIT Making and Designing Materials Engineering Contest (MADMEC), hope to further develop this technology in order to lower heating and cooling costs of buildings everywhere. The tiles are constructed with a polymer gel that reacts to changing temperatures in the form of changing color, and they also use common materials such as glass and plastic to keep costs low.

While still in its early stages, Thermeleon tiles show great potential to help individual homeowners as well as businesses to save money and help the environment by reducing the usage of heating and cooling systems. Hopefully, innovative ideas like this will continue to grow and develop in order to drive environmental sustainability towards the future.

Labels: building energy, hospitality industry, MIT, thermeleon