First Hospitality now managing dual-branded Hyatt hotel in Chicago

First Hospitality now managing dual-branded Hyatt hotel in Chicago


https://hotelsmag.com/news/hyatt-house-hyatt-place-chicago
by Denis Stackeusky


First Hospitality has assumed management of the dual-branded Hyatt House and Hyatt Place Chicago – Medical/University District, expanding the company’s portfolio in the Chicagoland area to 16 properties. This marks First Hospitality’s fifth multi-brand hotel and its ninth historic property nationwide. The combined hotels include 210 guest rooms within a historic landmark building at the center of the Illinois Medical District.

“Expanding our portfolio with Hyatt House and Hyatt Place Chicago – Medical/University District highlights the strength of our continued relationship with Murphy Real Estate Services and our ability to deliver value across multi-brand properties,” said David Duncan, president and CEO of First Hospitality. “We are especially proud to grow in our hometown of Chicago, while also adding to our portfolio of historic hotels.” 

The project continues First Hospitality’s partnership with longtime owner Murphy Real Estate Services, which also operates voco Chicago Downtown and Holiday Inn Chicago Downtown under First Hospitality management.

“First Hospitality has been very effective and shown exceptional performance at our voco Chicago Downtown/Holiday Inn Chicago Downtown, a dual-branded hotel in Chicago. Entrusting them with our Hyatt House/Hyatt Place nearby was a natural step in our expanding relationship,” said Steve Steinberg, president of Murphy Real Estate Services’ asset management arm, Murphy Asset Management.

Hyatt House Chicago – Medical/University District provides apartment-style suites with kitchens, catering to extended-stay guests, and includes complimentary breakfast and a fitness center. Hyatt Place Chicago – Medical/University District serves business and leisure travelers with flexible meeting spaces, complimentary breakfast, and a fitness center. The property also features on-site dining at H Bar. Both hotels offer convenient access to the Illinois Medical District, the United Center, and downtown Chicago.


Sonesta Hotel Miraflores in Lima opens



https://hotelsmag.com/news/sonesta-hotel-miraflores-lima
by Denis Stackeusky


Sonesta International Hotels Corporation announced the opening of Sonesta Hotel Miraflores in Lima, Peru, in partnership with Master Franchisor GHL Hoteles. The 133-room hotel is the company’s second property in Lima and is located near Kennedy Park, Iglesia Matriz Virgen Milagrosa, Love Park and the city’s main shopping district.

“We are proud to open Sonesta Hotel Miraflores, which will be Sonesta’s second property in Lima,” said Keith Pierce, Sonesta’s EVP and president of Franchise & Development. “Sonesta’s strategy of international expansion includes a specialized focus on growing our presence in the LATAM region. We look forward to providing an upscale option for guests traveling the region and further strengthening Sonesta’s reputation within the market.”

The hotel includes new brand elements introduced this year such as the Tapestry of Self Portrait. The installation was created by various artists to reflect the spirit of each hotel in the Sonesta Hotels, Resorts & Cruises brand. It combines historical references and details about each property’s heritage and surroundings.

Sonesta Hotel Miraflores will be operated by GHL Hoteles, a regional hotel management company with over 60 years of experience. Earlier in the year, Sonesta renewed its Master Franchise Agreement with GHL through 2034. The agreement covers the development and franchising of most of Sonesta’s brands in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. The partnership also includes the Sonesta Hotel El Olivar, the company’s first property in Lima.

Sonesta Hotels, Resorts & Cruises focus on wellness and the connection between hotel staff and guests while maintaining balance with the surrounding community. Rooms are designed with local inspiration and offer indoor and outdoor amenities and work-friendly areas.

Guests at Sonesta Hotel Miraflores will have access to oversized pet-friendly rooms, buffet breakfast, an on-site restaurant and a gym.


Popular Travel Credit Card Now Costs $895. But Is It Worth the Giant Fee?



Jacob Termansen/Jumby Bay
https://www.fodors.com/news/news/amex-platinum-now-costs-895-is-it-worth-the-price
 Scott Laird


The American Express Platinum Card comes with a slew of rewards, but $895 is a pretty big price tag.


The Platinum Card from American Express has a new annual fee of $895—$200 higher than the previous fee, but the card advertises some $3,500 in annual perks, if a cardmember is able to use all of them.

American Express has addressed that too, in an announcement rolling out the new card benefits Thursday. They’re offering a new app feature for Platinum cardmembers to track exactly how much of their annual benefits they have used, in addition to a host of new benefits and increases to annual benefit amounts to justify the nearly four figure annual charge just for having the card.

Most of the card benefits come in the form of a credit for several brands, including Uber, Uber One, Clear Plus, Resy, Lululemon, Walmart, and Saks. The card also gives credits for airline fees paid to an airline the cardmember designates, and a credit on luxury hotels booked through the American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts program. The card also offers airline lounge access, either at Amex’s own operated lounges, an allotment of 10 visits to Delta Sky Clubs when flying Delta, and a Priority Pass Select membership.

Many of the credits are offered on a monthly or quarterly rather than a cumulative basis. The Uber credits are doled out in monthly increments, while the Lululemon credits are quarterly, requiring that cardmembers be consistent customers for those products in order to take advantage of the full benefit.

There’s also the possibility American Express seeks to squeeze more revenue out of existing cardholders while reducing the total number of cardholders to reduce the number of eligible travelers seeking access to the company’s crowded airport lounges. Competitor Capital One has introduced its own restrictions to reduce crowding at lounges as card issuers grapple with how to keep benefits rewarding enough to justify the growing fees for their credit cards. Delta’s limit on the number of visits to Sky Clubs by Platinum cardholders is also a relatively recent move to reduce crowding in their lounges.

Amex will levy the higher annual fee on new card signups from today onward. Existing members will be charged the higher annual fee upon renewal of their card. Existing cardholders who feel that the benefits no longer justify their annual fee can cancel their cards or change to another Amex card with a different annual fee structure.

In addition to the travel benefits given members just for having the card, the card also earns Membership Rewards points, a currency that Amex allows cardholders to exchange for everything from statement credits to transferring into airline and hotel loyalty programs, or to pay directly for Amex travel products such as flights and luxury hotel stays.

The move is something of an arms race among premium credit cards. In June, Chase announced a then-industry-highest annual fee of $795 for its Sapphire Reserve card, besting the Amex Platinum card at the time. That fee jump represented a 77% increase since the Sapphire Reserve card was introduced in 2016. As part of the announcement, Chase announced a slew of additional benefits to justify the higher fee. Amex announced it would be refreshing the Platinum card’s benefits shortly after Chase’s announcement.

American Express first introduced the Platinum card as an “ultra-exclusive” option in 1984. That year, the annual fee was $250. If the annual fee had kept pace with inflation for that same period, it would be $779 today.

Everyone Is Lying to You About What Space Really Looks Like



NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
https://www.fodors.com/news/news/how-do-scientists-photograph- 
Waverly Colville


Creating those viral images of space is a painstaking process of science meets art. Here’s how the experts do it.




When most people imagine traveling to space, they picture breathtaking, colorful swirls or sparkly stars like the images shown on social media. Perhaps the iridescent Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation or the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula come to mind. But these images are not what space would actually look like if you could time-travel there. In fact, space would look pretty bland to you or me.

That’s right. Bland and boring. You’d probably see a mostly black, endless sky sprinkled with white stars. No colorful, psychedelic patterns. But, that doesn’t mean that those images are entirely fabricated. The reason involves a careful scientific and artistic process that transforms invisible light in space into visible wavelengths humans can see, helping drive public interest.
Our Eyes Are Limited

Space would look rather plain to us because the human eye can only see a narrow range of the electromagnetic spectrum, known as the visible light spectrum. The human eye is made of rods and cones, which decipher light and color. The cones are sensitive to red, green, or blue light, so all the colors we see are a mix of light from these cones. They can only detect wavelengths from 380 to 700 nanometers, which is just 0.0035% of the total spectrum. That means there are a lot of wavelengths the human eye can’t see because they lie outside of the visible light spectrum (radio waves, microwaves, and x-rays, for example), but telescopes and cameras can.


Muhannad Muhannad/Shutterstock




Space telescopes like the Hubble and the James Webb are built to capture wavelengths far beyond the visible light spectrum. These wavelengths carry crucial scientific information about temperature, composition, motion, and age of celestial objects. For example, the hotter an object is, the shorter the wavelength, and the bluer an object appears. The colder the object, the more reddish it can look, because the wavelengths are longer.

When these telescopes capture the images, they are typically grayscale. These are called “true color” images, meaning they match what the human eye would see. Those colorful images of space made famous online are called “false color” images, meaning they were created using filters to make the invisible visible. However, the word “false” may be misleading–these images are scientifically accurate, and are used to learn about the contents of an image and increase public interest in astronomy.
The Art and Scientific Process

Creating those stunning space images involves multiple steps, beginning with careful planning and determination of what wavelengths to show. This is determined by what scientists want to learn from the image.

The James Webb telescope has a giant, 21-foot mirror inside that’s coated in gold, because gold reflects the infrared light very well. The mirror gathers light and reflects it into the telescope’s two instruments: the NIRCam and the MIRI. They detect different wavelengths. The light hits its sensors and goes through a filter wheel, where each filter represents a different wavelength.

“Let’s say you have 10 different filters that only let pass a different portion of the infrared light. Then you assign a complete rainbow of visible colors to each of the 10 filters to bring up that depth and that beautiful imagery,” says Macarena Garcia Marin, a project scientist in the Webb Mission Office. “So you would get 10 different images, one of them in each color. And then you convert that into actual colors.”


NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team




Once the scientists have the various filtered images, they stack them to create the beautiful images you’ve seen online.

Joseph Depasquale and Alyssa Pagan are science visuals developers in the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute, where they create astronomical images from the data received from Hubble and Webb for scientific use, news releases, and public outreach.

They take the data from the telescope and put it through pipeline processing, where they clean up the image, removing any spots that were reflected in the telescope and aren’t actually things in space, and compositing them to create a color image. The longest wavelengths are assigned shades of red, while the shorter wavelengths are green and then blue.

From there, their focus turns to aesthetics (while still maintaining scientific accuracy and focusing on the scientific message they want to convey through the image). They tackle color balance, white balance, and adhere to astrophotography best practices.

“We’re adhering to the data but we’re also thinking: ‘What are we trying to showcase? What are we trying to make sure that the audience understands?’ There’s a focus,” says Pagan. “We’re thinking about composition, the movement of the eye, how digestible this image is. Color contrast and color separation are very important in leading the eye and enhancing those details we’re getting from specific wavelengths because those wavelengths are capturing temperatures, compositions, et cetera. It’s telling part of the story.”

This process can take an hour for simpler images of a single comet, or weeks, depending on the size and complexity. Depasquale and Pagan worked on images of the Pillars of Creation and the Cosmic Cliffs–photos that show giant parts of space. The Pillars of Creation show five-light-year-tall structures of gas while the Cosmic Cliffs show a giant star birth. These large images require stitching together a mosaic.

“You have a lot more filters to work with and you have time to spend looking at those filters to make sure you’re utilizing the best ones. You’re not just taking all the filters and being like, I’m gonna use all of them willy-nilly and not thinking about how they stack with each other,” Pagan says. “Because it’s like mixing a bunch of paint–it can just turn brown.”

But sometimes, the images are not simply colored based on different wavelengths. If scientists want to show two distinct aspects of an image, for example, they may color one red and one blue, like color coding.

Peter Thomas is a Cornell University planetary geologist who worked on images, such as Saturn’s moons, looking at the measurement of shapes of objects, the color, and the brightness to determine the composition.

“It gets arbitrary. If you publish these things, you have to explain exactly which wavelengths have been done and why,” Thomas says. “Hopefully the people writing it will explain exactly why they have taken two wavelengths and made one blue and the other red to differentiate what they’re after. It’s a wonderful world of both art and very specific scientific presentations.”

Through these colorized photos, scientists learn about space while also hoping to encourage people to learn more.

“Especially in a time where people are so distracted, I think color is very important,” Pagan says. “We always talk about how we have a matter of seconds when someone’s scrolling through their newsfeed to capture their attention with a beautiful image. You really need that pop of color, the contrast to zero in on. Then hopefully, inspire them to want to learn more.”





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