Corporate Bits | Crowne Plaza Changi bags title of World’s Best Airport Hotel 2015

Crowne Plaza Changi Airport was named World’s Best Airport Hotel and Best Airport Hotel in Asia at the 2015 Skytrax World Airport Awards last Thursday, at the Passenger Terminal Expo in Paris, France.
The World Airport Awards results are determined completely by the votes of travellers over a 9-month survey. The 2015 World’s Best Airport Hotel Award is based on nominations by 1.56 million airport hotel guests worldwide, spanning 65 nationalities. It evaluates 12 key performance indicators of the guest experience, including but not limited to hotel service staff standards, cleanliness and comfort of rooms and accessibility between terminal and hotel.
“To win this prestigious award is a great achievement for the Crowne Plaza Singapore Changi Airport, and underlines its popularity amongst air travellers as the world’s Best Airport Hotel,” said Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax. “The awards recognize those hotels that combine convenience, comfort and top quality service as an integrated package for today’s travellers, and the Crowne Plaza Singapore Changi Airport was a high performer in all of these categories to win the World’s Best Airport Hotel title this year.”
The hotel is set to increase its room inventory by an additional 243 rooms next year.

Revel denied in third attempt at sellingUSD2.4b casino

Revel AC Inc. failed in its third attempt to sell its bankrupt casino, opening the door for other potential bidders for the Atlantic City, New Jersey, resort.
After months of false starts, Revel finally reached an USD82 million deal with Florida real estate investor Glenn Straub’s Polo North Country Club Inc. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gloria Burns shot down that sale at a Friday hearing in Camden, New Jersey, saying she can’t approve it because an earlier version of the deal is still being weighed by another court.
After opening at a cost of $2.4 billion in 2012, Revel sought bankruptcy protection in June for the second time in as many years. It closed in September after failing to draw interest for a quick sale. The casino was one of four in Atlantic City to fold last year as competition from surrounding states lured away customers.
The bankrupt casino owner originally had a $110 million deal with Toronto-based Brookfield Property Partners LP, but Brookfield walked away after failing to come to terms over energy payments.
Straub, who had been the lead bidder at auction, stepped back in to scoop up the property but failed to close the $95.4 million sale by a Feb. 9 deadline. Revel moved to terminate the deal after the closing date lapsed.
After that agreement was scrapped, new terms were hammered out resulting in an offer that’s more than $13 million below the previous deal with Polo North.
The judge said she couldn’t authorize the transaction because the original sale order is still being challenged by Revel tenants in district court, and it would be improper to “circumvent or interfere with the appeal process.”
Last month some of the casino’s current tenants, including the owner of a nightclub, successfully challenged the terms of the Polo North sale, saying it improperly stripped them of their property rights. A Philadelphia federal appeals court ruling blocked that part of the deal and sent the dispute back to the district court in Camden.