Faculty & Research

Davis & Gilbert LLP

At Davis & Gilbert, their attorneys are committed to understanding the special business intricacies that affect all corporate and entrepreneurial matters for clients of all sizes.  From corporate and, employment, benefits and compensation issues to real estate, litigation and intellectual property matters, their unique collaboration among practice groups ensures unmatched expertise in serving diverse clients.

Known to companies in virtually every industry, their clients include prominent marketing communications agencies, real estate companies, package goods companies, publishers, entertainment conglomerates, food and beverage companies, financial institutions, computer, technology and telecommunications companies, cosmetics manufacturers, restaurants, consumer electronics companies, retail apparel stores and automotive companies.

Davis & Gilbert operates at the leading edge of their practice areas, addressing the newest issues in the most sophisticated ways.

Deloitte & Touche USA LLP

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, its member firms, and their respective subsidiaries and affiliates. As a Swiss Verein (association), neither Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu nor any of its member firms has any liability for each other’s acts or omissions. Each of the member firms is a separate and independent legal entity operating under the names “Deloitte,” “Deloitte & Touche,” “Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu,” or other related names. Services are provided by the member firms or their subsidiaries or affiliates and not by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Verein.

Deloitte & Touche USA LLP is the U.S. member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. In the United States, services are provided by the subsidiaries of Deloitte & Touche USA LLP (Deloitte & Touche LLP, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP, Deloitte Tax LLP, and their subsidiaries), and not by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP.

Denihan Hospitality Group (DHG)

The Denihan Hospitality Group (DHG) is a privately-held, full service hotel management and development company built upon a successful foundation in real estate, guest service, and profitable asset management. DHG has been an industry leader for nearly 50 years, and is led by Co-CEOs Brooke Barrett and Patrick Denihan, as well as an executive team comprised of some of hospitality’s most coveted strategists in the industry today.

The company owns and operates three nationally acclaimed hotel brands. Affinia Hotels is a stylish collection of properties located in NYC, Chicago, and Washington DC, with each hotel offering a distinctive array of amenities and services tailored to a particular style of life…from fitness to tranquility and everything in between. The James brand – in Chicago and soon to open in New York – offers its guests the experience of “luxury liberated,” with exceptional service, design and amenities free from pretension or white-glove formality. The Benjamin in NYC provides an experience of true luxury with the highest level of service in an intimate, boutique-style setting. Headquartered in NYC, DHG also manages several independent hotels in Manhattan, including The Surrey, a boutique hotel that is redefining luxury on NY’s exclusive Upper East Side.

DHG grows its national portfolio through management contracts, joint ventures, investment partnerships, and acquisitions. By the year 2015, the company expects to have a presence in the top 10 urban markets in the country.

eCornell & Executive Education

A wholly-owned subsidiary of Cornell University, eCornell delivers practical, essential, online professional development programs as a component of comprehensive corporate learning solutions and targeted learning applications. eCornell programs are targeted to mid- and senior-level leaders, emerging managers, HR staff and other high-potential employees in the following learning areas: financial management, hospitality management, human resources, leadership and strategic management, management essentials, and project leadership.

The Office of Executive Education (OEE) at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration facilitates interactive learning opportunities where global hospitality professionals and world-class Cornell faculty explore, develop and apply ideas to advance business and personal success.  In partnership with eCornell the OEE offers a wide range of online courses.  In addition, OEE offers classroom-based programs that target specific hospitality management topics.   All programs are developed to address the ever-changing needs of hospitality professionals and organizations.

Expedia, Inc.

Expedia, Inc. is the leading online travel company in the world. Since launching in 1996, the company's Expedia.com brand has grown to become the world's single most popular online travel booking site, generating more leisure travel bookings than any other travel agency - online or offline.  Worldwide, the Expedia, Inc. family of brands today includes 20 Expedia.com sites; 60 Hotels.com sites; leading agency hotel company Venere.com™; leading U.S. discount travel site Hotwire®; Egencia™, the world's fifth largest corporate travel management company; the world's largest travel community TripAdvisor® Media Network; destination activities provider ExpediaLocalExpert®; luxury travel specialist Classic Vacations®; and China's second largest booking site eLong™. With more people booking travel online in Expedia, Inc's global marketplace than anywhere else, the company delivers consumers value in leisure and business travel, drives incremental demand and direct bookings to travel suppliers, and provides advertisers vast opportunity to reach the most valuable audience of in-market travel consumers anywhere through Expedia Media Solutions. Expedia also powers bookings for some of the world’s leading airlines and hotels, top consumer brands, high traffic websites, and thousands of active affiliates through Expedia® Affiliate Network.  (NASDAQ: EXPE)

Forbes Travel Guide

Forbes Travel Guide is the new name for Mobil Travel Guide, the originator of the prestigious Five Star ratings and certifications. The company has provided the most comprehensive star ratings and reviews of hotels, restaurants and spas since 1958. Forbes Travel Guide's team of anonymous, expert inspectors evaluates properties against rigorous and objective proprietary standards. Through its print and online products, Forbes Travel Guide gives consumers insight to make better-informed travel and leisure decisions. Forbes Travel Guide, under license from Forbes Media LLC, is headquartered in Chicago, IL.

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

Fox Rothschild LLP

Fox Rothschild is a full-service law firm built to serve business leaders. Over the past 100 years, we have grown to more than 400 lawyers in 14 offices coast to coast. Our clients come to us because we understand their issues, their priorities, and the way they
think. We help clients manage risk and make better decisions by offering practical, innovative advice.

Fox has been nationally recognized as one of the top 200 law firms in the United States, and we’re one of the top four fastest-growing firms in the National Law Journal 250. We’re capable of reaching a broad national audience, with offices in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Exton, Lansdale, and Warrington, Pennsylvania; Atlantic City, Princeton, and Roseland, New Jersey; New York City, New York; Wilmington, Delaware; Las Vegas, Nevada; Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; and West Palm Beach,
Florida.

French Quarter Holdings, Inc.

French Quarter Holdings, Inc. is a privately held hotel development company founded in 1993 by Ra'anan (Ronnie) Ben-Zur. Since its inception, French Quarter Holdings has focused on the acquisition and redevelopment of undervalued hotels, renovating, repositioning and preparing them for sale. These acquisitions include:

• French Quarter Suites, Atlanta: Acquired in 1993 and sold in 1997
• Sheraton Key Largo: Sold in 1997 following a comprehensive renovation after less than 12 months ownership
• The DoubleTree JFK Hotel: Sold in 2006 after a complete renovation and re-branding as a DoubleTree.

The company's latest project, La Torretta Del Lago Resort & Spa is located in Houston, Texas and opened in January 2009. This $130-million dollar redevelopment project includes 445 luxury accommodations, golf, tennis, a destination spa, a 3.5-acre aqua park and 70,000 square feet of premium meeting and event space. Both the resort and its marquis French restaurant, Chez Roux, created by internationally renowned chef Albert Roux, recently earned the AAA 4-diamond designation on first inspection. La Torretta Del Lago is the result of a vision to create the ultimate European, lakeside retreat. Sophisticated yet approachable, discerning yet all-encompassing, luxurious yet family friendly, this 4-diamond getaway strikes the perfect balance between international finery and relaxed ease.

French Quarter Holdings combines years of experience in large-scale, complex hotel and resort redevelopment projects with the personal care and attention of a boutique company focused on delivering superior value to its guests, investors and partners.

HVS

HVS provides global consulting and valuation services for the hotel, restaurant, gaming, and leisure industries. The firm was founded in 1980 by Steve Rushmore, author of The Valuation of Hotels and Motels and a pioneer in consulting and appraisal methodology for the hospitality industry.

Through our network of offices around the world, HVS offers a wide range of specialties including valuation of hotels and resorts, executive search, investment banking, hotel management, gaming services, food and beverage services, hotel parking consulting, asset management, golf services, sales and marketing, interior design, shared-ownership services, eco services, and appraisals and consulting for convention, sports, and entertainment facilities. HVS’ hotel and hospitality experts consistently generate a wide variety of articles, studies, and publications on all aspects of the industry, and the firm is represented at most of the major annual hotel industry conferences throughout the world.

HVS is client driven, entrepreneurial, and dedicated to providing the best advice and services in a timely and cost efficient manner. Learn more at www.hvs.com.

Hyatt

Hyatt Hotels Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, is a global hospitality company with widely recognized, industry leading brands and a tradition of innovation developed over our more than fifty-year history. Our mission is to provide authentic hospitality by making a difference in the lives of the people we touch every day. We focus on this mission in pursuit of our goal of becoming the most preferred brand in each segment that we serve for our associates, guests and owners. We support our mission and goal by adhering to a set of core values of mutual respect, intellectual honesty and integrity, humility, fun, creativity and innovation that characterize our culture.

We believe that our mission, goal and values, together with the strength of our brands, strong capital and asset base and opportunities for expansion, provide us with a platform for long-term value creation. As of September 30, 2009, our worldwide portfolio consisted of 415 Hyatt-branded properties (119,857 rooms and units). Our full service hotels operate under four world-recognized brands, Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency and Hyatt. We recently introduced our fifth full service brand, Andaz. Our two select service brands are Hyatt Place and Hyatt Summerfield Suites (an extended stay brand). We develop, sell and manage vacation ownership properties in select locations as part of the Hyatt Vacation Club. (NYSE:H)

InterContinental Hotels Group

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms. IHG owns, manages, leases or franchises, through various subsidiaries, over 4,400 hotels and more than 645,000 guest rooms in 100 countries and territories around the world. The Group owns a portfolio of well recognised and respected hotel brands including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo®, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn® Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites® and Candlewood Suites® and also manages the world's largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club® Rewards with 48 million members worldwide.

IHG has 1,400 hotels in its development pipeline, which will create 140,000 jobs worldwide over the next few years.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC is the Group's holding company and is incorporated in Great Britain and registered in England and Wales.

With over 4,000 hotels globally, IHG has a big responsibility and a big opportunity to make a positive difference. Corporate Responsibility is an important value for the organisation and is shaping how IHG better manages its costs and revenue. Finding innovative ways to operate hotels in a sustainable way speaks to the total commitment to people, the environment, and owner investment.

Long-term business partnerships and stakeholder engagement provides IHG with the means to better understand business context and to consult widely on sustainability issues. This is why IHG works closely with Cornell University and regularly attends their sustainability roundtable events.

To read IHG’s online CR report, please visit www.ihg.com/responsibility

To visit the IHG’s Innovation hotel and help the company co-create the future of responsible hotels visit www.ihg.com/innovation

IHG offers information and online reservations for all its hotel brands at www.ihg.com and information for the Priority Club Rewards programme at www.priorityclub.com. For the latest news from IHG, visit our online Press Office at www.ihg.com/media.

Jumeirah Group

Jumeirah properties are regarded as among the most luxurious and innovative in the world and have won numerous international travel and tourism awards. The fast growing Dubai based luxury international hospitality management group encompasses the world renowned Burj Al Arab, the world’s most luxurious hotel, the multi-award winning Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Madinat Jumeirah and Jumeirah Bab Al Shams Desert Resort & Spa in Dubai, the Jumeirah Carlton Tower and Jumeirah Lowndes Hotel in London and the Jumeirah Essex House on Central Park South in New York.

The group’s activities are however, not restricted to hotel and resort management. The Jumeirah Group portfolio also includes Wild Wadi, regarded as one of the premier water parks outside of North America and The Emirates Academy, the region’s only third level academic institution specializing in the hospitality and tourism sectors.  Building on this success, Jumeirah Group became a member of Dubai Holding in 2004, a collection of leading Dubai based businesses and projects, in a step that aims to initiate a new phase of growth and development for the group.

Jumeirah’s ambitious expansion plans to grow its portfolio of luxury hotels and resorts worldwide to 60 by 2012 are well underway with projects currently under development in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Aqaba, Doha, Phuket, Shanghai, Bermuda, Mallorca and London.

LRP Publications

Founded in 1977 by Kenneth Kahn, a practicing employment law attorney, Labor Relations Press first published case reporters for the legal profession. As the company grew, it became known as LRP Publications. For 30 years, LRP's fast-paced, results-oriented environment has helped it to expand – both internally and externally. LRP publishes the industry-leading Human Resource Executive® magazine and Risk and Insurance® magazine, along with more than 120 newsletters in the fields of human resources, workers compensation, education administration, disability law and higher education. Major web sites include HREOnline.com, Workindex.com, cyberFEDS.com, Specialedconnection.com and Educationdaily.com.

In addition to print and online resources, LRP Publications also provides more than 50 top-quality training and educational development seminars, conferences, trade shows and symposiums including the National HR in Hospitality Conference & Expo™ — the nation’s premier event specifically for HR management, law and labor relations in the hospitality industry. For more information on the National HR in Hospitality Conference & Expo™, please visit www.hrinhospitality.com

Maritz

Based in St. Louis, Maritz is an international sales and marketing services company, which offers a full-service suite of solutions, including research, loyalty marketing, motivation, and learning platforms. Founded in 1894, Maritz recorded revenue of $1.43 billion for fiscal year 2009. As the global leader in meeting, event, and incentive travel management, Maritz is the world’s largest buyer of meeting and event space, Maritz procures over 1.5 million room-nights per year. The firm runs loyalty programs for six of the top ten hotel brands, and conducts nearly half of all lodging customer service surveys in North America.

Among specific solutions provided by Maritz are rewards and recognition, custom learning, customer loyalty, market and customer research, performance incentives, experiential marketing, and travel, meetings, and events management.

Maritz’s hospitality and tourism industry customers include hotels, casinos, restaurants, and transportation businesses—among them: Best Western, Gaylord, Harrah’s InterContinental Hotel Group, Marriott International, and Starwood. The firm’s worldwide presence includes key offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany, and associates, alliances, and preferred suppliers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and the Americas.

Marriott International, Inc.

Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE:MAR) is a leading lodging company with more than 3,100 lodging properties in the United States and 66 other countries and territories. Marriott International operates and franchises hotels under the Marriott, JW Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Residence Inn, Courtyard, TownePlace Suites, Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites and Bulgari brand names; develops and operates vacation ownership resorts under the Marriott Vacation Club, Horizons by Marriott Vacation Club, The Ritz-Carlton Club and Grand Residences by Marriott brands; operates Marriott Executive Apartments; provides furnished corporate housing through its Marriott ExecuStay division; and operates conference centers. The company is headquartered in Bethesda, Md., and had approximately 151,000 employees at 2007 year-end. It is ranked as the lodging industry’s most admired company and one of the best companies to work for by FORTUNE®, and has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the 2007 Sustained Excellence Award and Partner of the Year since 2004. In fiscal year 2007, Marriott International reported sales from continuing operations of $13 billion. For more information or reservations, please visit our web site at www.marriott.com.

Marsh, Inc.

Marsh, Inc. is the world's leading risk and insurance services firm. Our mission is "To create and deliver risk solutions and services that make our clients more successful." Since our formation in 1871, we have grown into an enterprise with 410 owned-and-operated offices and 38,000 colleagues, who serve clients in more than 100 countries. Marsh's annual revenues are $5.9 billion.

Marsh Inc. is a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC), a global professional-services firm with approximately 60,000 employees and annual revenues exceeding $10 billion.

McDonalds USA, LLC

McDonald's USA, LLC, is the leading foodservice provider in the United States serving a variety of wholesome foods made from quality ingredients to millions of customers every day. More than 80 percent of McDonald's 14,000 U.S. restaurants are independently owned and operated by local franchisees. For more information on McDonald's visit www.mcdonalds.com or log on at any of the 10,000 Wi-Fi enabled McDonald's U.S. restaurants.

newBrandAnalytics

newBrandAnalytics is the leading provider of social business intelligence solutions delivering unmatched guest satisfaction, consumer intelligence, and competitive insight for the Hospitality, Restaurant and Retail industries.

newBrandAnalytics’ flagship and enterprise grade product, Social Guest Satisfaction™, enables customer satisfaction-focused organizations to identify real time key insights from guest feedback. newBrandAnalytics insight is proven to yield operational improvement, enhanced marketing opportunities, and new strategic initiatives that drive increased revenue and guest count.

priceline.com

The Priceline Group of Companies (Nasdaq: PCLN) is a leader in global online hotel reservations, with over 150,000 participating hotels worldwide and 92.8 million room nights booked in 2010. The Group is composed of four primary brands – Booking.com, priceline.com, Agoda.com and TravelJigsaw. The Priceline Group provides online travel services in Europe, North America, South America, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa.

Based in Amsterdam, Booking.com is a leading international online hotel reservation service operating in 99 countries in 41 languages. Booking.com offers its customers access to over 120,000 participating hotels worldwide. In the U.S., priceline.com gives leisure travelers multiple ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises. In addition to getting compelling published prices, travelers can take advantage of priceline.com’s famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available. Priceline.com also operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com.Singapore-based Agoda.com is an Asian online hotel reservation service that offers hotel rooms around the world and is available in 32 languages. With headquarters in Manchester, UK, TravelJigsaw is a multinational car hire service, offering its reservation services in more than 4,000 locations in 115 countries. Customer support is provided in 20 languages.

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Hospitality & Leisure
Hospitality industry business sectors are highly sensitive to economic and competitive market conditions and are capital, management, marketing, personnel, energy, maintenance and technology intensive.

Our professionals offer vast experience with the following hospitality sectors: lodging, gaming, food service, convention centers, timeshare/vacation ownership, cruise, tourism, sports arenas, theme parks and other public assembly and leisure real estate entities.

With more specialists dedicated to the hospitality and leisure industry than any other firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers teams provide advice and expertise to hospitality and leisure owners, franchisors, management, lenders, investors, creditors, government entities, and product and service providers. Our professionals offer in-depth market and financial analysis, economic and statistical research and analysis, performance improvement, due diligence, valuation, litigation and dispute services, and technology advisory services.

Proskauer

Proskauer, one of the nation’s largest and oldest law firms, has long been recognized in legal and business circles as a significant and influential firm in the hospitality industry. Our commitment to the hospitality industry is unparalleled among major national firms. We offer extensive experience advising hospitality clients includes mergers & acquisition; joint ventures; finance; management agreements; mixed-use development and branding; real estate; labor and employment; litigation and dispute resolution; environmental; tax; bankruptcy; and intellectual property.

Our Lodging & Gaming Practice has a renowned track record for legal innovation representing the world’s leaders in lodging and gaming. We have also developed enduring client relationships with first-class, luxury and super-luxury hotel chains.

Our Lodging & Gaming attorneys are actively involved in the hospitality and tourism industry, serving on committees and advisory boards of the industry’s leading organizations. Our practice co-chairs, Jeffrey Horwitz and Michael Feldman, also founded The New York Hospitality Council, a not-for-profit corporation co-founded by Proskauer and supported by both Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Administration. The Council is a forum for hospitality industry leaders to discuss the key issues facing the hotel, travel and tourism industry.

ReviewPro

ReviewPro enables hoteliers to increase guest satisfaction and online revenue by more effectively managing their online reputation and presence in leading social media sites. The company provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and reporting needed to help hotel professionals more effectively manage their organization. ReviewPro indexes over 100 million guest hotel reviews in 16 languages across more than 90 of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and customer review websites. After rapid growth in the European market, the company has expanded internationally and quickly grown its client roster to thousands of hotels in nearly 60 countries, including Louvre Hotels Group, Meliá Hotels International, The Red Carnation Hotel Collection, Mammoth Mountain Resorts, The Roger Smith Hotel, Ace Hotel New York, Hotel Bel Air, The Beverly Hills Hotel and Montage Hotels. For more information, visit http://www.reviewpro.com.

Sabre Hospitality Solutions

Sabre Hospitality Solutions leverages the strength and breadth of Sabre's technology, marketing and distribution tools to bring hotel suppliers a global
end-to-end solution. Sabre Hospitality Solutions enables hoteliers to benefit from the streamlined integration of these innovative, comprehensive tools to help them increase revenues, identify savings and improve customer service.

Our solutions include: Marketing Solutions encompassing all Internet Marketing Services (Website Design and Development, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Mobile Solutions) as well as Travel Agency media and Online Merchandising. Our innovative Distribution Solutions help hotels around the world compete in the global marketplace by connecting them with their guests via all distribution channels – over 10,000 hotels use our Central Reservation System (CRS) and nearly 100,000 hotels distribute through our Global Distribution System (GDS)

The combination of these marketing and distribution services enables Sabre Hospitality Solutions to sell more hotel room nights than any other company in the world.

Travelocity, a Sabre Holdings brand, is committed to being the traveler's champion. This customer-driven focus, backed by live 24/7 phone support, great prices and powerful shopping technology has made Travelocity the fifth largest travel agency in the U.S. - booking $4.9 billion in travel in 2004. Based in Southlake, Texas, Travelocity also owns and operates Travelocity Business(SM), Travelocity Europe and lastminute.com, making it the leader in online travel in Europe.

Sathguru Management Consultants (P) Ltd.

Sathguru Management Consultants is a multifaceted advisory firm providing strategic, technological, functional and sectoral advisory services to an international clientele. With its global base in Hyderabad, India and the US operations based at Cambridge, MA, Sathguru has been engaged with the hospitality sector for the last two and a half decades. Sathguru's primary focus relates to strategic advisory, financial advisory, sector growth assessment, technology management, information technology solutions, capital markets advisory and brand affiliation management. Several clients have realized high-performance objectives through Sathguru's comprehensive industry expertise in the hospitality sector.

Sathguru brings value to its global clientele by sensing opportunities in high growth emerging markets with unique models of engagement in lodging, food service, entertainment and allied service opportunities. Our unique strength in helping clients protect and license intellectual assets and manage brand/franchise affiliation is has guided global players in securing a strong foothold in emerging markets and gain successful collaborations with in-country partners in these regions. Its strong sector focus and technology management expertise ensures that Sathguru holds a lead position in enterprise valuation and technology valuation.

The Center for Executive Education (CEE), a key division at Sathguru, provides capacity for the Hospitality industry in association with the Office of Executive Education with the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. The CEE programs bring together the global leaders from hospitality and food sector to gain exposure to addressing next generation challenges and opportunities.

Sathguru helps clients implement projects by providing rigorous analysis during the pre-planning process and advice on best use and development decisions. Sathguru provides independent and objective financial consulting and advisory services to public agencies and private developers involved in creating business and entertainment facilities. Sathguru combines two decades of experience and knowledge of the hospitality industry to offer expertise in the conception, development, management and appraisal of successful ventures in the F&B and restaurant industry. Sathguru’s information technology division supports the sector with innovative decision making tools for retaining the competitive advantage.

Schneider Electric

About Schneider Electric
As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments, including leadership positions in energy and infrastructure, industrial processes, building automation, and data centers/networks, as well as a broad presence in residential applications. Focused on making energy safe, reliable, and efficient, the company's 100,000+ employees achieved sales of more than $22 billion in 2009, through an active commitment to help individuals and organizations “Make the most of their energy”.

www.schneider-electric.us

Thayer Lodging Group

Thayer Lodging Group, formed in 1991, is a real estate venture capital firm that sponsors private equity funds focused on the hospitality industry. Clients include Fortune 50 companies, public and private pension funds, endowments, and family offices. The company has delivered returns in excess of 30% since inception. Currently active funds own in excess of $2 Billion of hotel real estate and hold approximately $800 million in available investment capacity. Thayer Lodging Group is headquartered in Annapolis Maryland.

Thompson Hotels

Thompson Hotels is owned collectively by Stephen Brandman along with Larry, Michael and Jason Pomeranc. Thompson Hotels currently manages eleven properties either open or currently in development. In New York, they are 60 Thompson – a favorite among celebrities since its inception in 2001, 6 Columbus, Gild Hall, Thompson Lower East Side and Smyth Tribeca; in Los Angeles, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel – a famed celebrity sighting spot since the times of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable – and Thompson Beverly Hills. Additional properties include Donovan House Washington D.C., Sax Chicago Chicago, Thompson Toronto Canada, and Belgraves London scheduled to open Fall 2011.

Thompson Hotels set out to create a group of hotels that are effectively sophisticated and classically cool but small enough to provide personal service. They wanted to build a brand that was all about design and service. Thompson Hotels are contemporary and elegant with an element of edge and surprise. Thompson Hotels cater to the celebrity and those who want to feel like a rockstar. With Thompson’s chic design, just being in their hotels makes you one of the hipsters. Thompson Hotels welcome the fashionable and the celebrated.

Thompson caters to the wanderer, the nomad – no doubt the stylish one. They describe their guest as a traveler, a businessman, an artist, a restless soul: where the Thompson hotels are his haven.

Travelport

Travelport is one of the world's largest travel conglomerates offering broad based business services to companies operating in the global travel industry. The company is comprised of Travelport GDS, a global distribution system business that includes the Worldspan and Galileo brands; GTA, a group travel and wholesale hotel business; Business Intelligence Services, a data analysis business; and IT Services and Software, which hosts mission critical applications and provides business solutions for major airlines. Travelport also owns approximately 48% of Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW), a leading global online travel company. With 2007 revenues of $2.6 billion, Travelport operates in 145 countries and has approximately 5,500 employees. Travelport is a private company owned by The Blackstone Group, One Equity Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures and Travelport management.

WATG

Since it's founding in 1945, WATG has specialized in hospitality, leisure, and entertainment design from its offices in Seattle, Honolulu, Irvine, Orlando, Singapore, and London.  The firm is best known for such internationally-acclaimed projects as The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, Las Vegas; Atlantis Paradise Island, Paradise Island, the Bahamas; The Ritz-Carlton, Bali; The Four Seasons in Mexico City and Tokyo; Hyatt Regency Kauai Resort & Spa, Poipu Beach, Kauai; Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, Maui; Hotel Bora Bora, French Polynesia; Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, Walt Disney World Resort, Lake Buena Vista; The Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel & Spa, Pasadena; and Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach.  For more information, visit www.watg.com.

Wyndham Hotel Group

Wyndham Hotel Group is the world’s largest and most diverse hotel company, encompassing approximately 7,190 hotels and 611,200 rooms in 65 countries under 15 hotel brands. Headquartered in Parsippany, N.J. with offices around the globe including London and Hong Kong, the Hotel Group employs more than 4,000 associates worldwide.

From the award winning upscale offerings of its namesake Wyndham Hotels and Resorts® brand, to the distinctly comfortable and familiar properties of its iconic Days Inn®, Super 8® and Howard Johnson® brands, the company prides itself on providing guests and franchisees with exceptional customer service, great value and the most lodging choices around the world.

The company’s loyalty program, Wyndham Rewards®, is the largest in the lodging industry, based on number of participating hotels, with more than 8 million active members.

Wyndham Hotel Group is one of three business units of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (NYSE: WYN), one of the world’s largest hospitality companies providing hotels, timeshare resorts, vacation rentals and timeshare exchange.