For Steve Joyce, it’s clear this is personal.

The CEO of Choice Hotels International had a bit more of a bounce in his step at this year’s brand convention, and it’s not only because he has shed a few pounds. The brand Joyce is most proud of—the brand he left Marriott International to help launch—appears to have emerged from a tough four years, and it finally looks poised for future success.

Last week, the team here spent a few extra minutes after our daily news meetings entertainingly kicking around what we would do if we won the Mega Millions jackpot—as did most of the nation, I’m guessing. We knew there was no chance of winning, but every once in a while it’s fun to dream about a life with no financial constraints, right? Some of the HotelNewsNow.com staff vowed to continue working while others said they’d never be seen or heard from again (I won’t throw anyone under the bus by naming names).  

The conversations helped resurface a query I’d been pondering for a while now: If all of a sudden $1 million dollars landed in your lap and you were forced to invest it in something related to the hotel industry, what would it be?

What I’d always considered, until recently, a second-tier franchisor, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group proved last week during the Carlson Global Hotel Business Conference it is quickly becoming a strong player in hotel brand game.

We’re all aware things are moving at warp speed in the hotel and travel distribution space—so fast it’s almost impossible to keep tabs on every tool that’s being introduced and every new strategy that flaunts success. Google Travel, Room Key, Hotel Tonight, Verified Reviews, Distribution Study Reports, Global Hotel Exchange, blah, blah, blah … the list goes on and our minds keep spinning trying to make sense of it all.

The other day, in fact, I read this headline: “Google on its way to control most online travel purchases?” Now, I love Google products and we’ve written a ton during the past year about how the company’s foray into travel search will affect hoteliers’ distribution strategies, but it ain’t the end of the world, people. Pump the brakes. No single company is going to become a monopoly on selling hotel rooms; travelers always are going to have myriad options depending on the best solution for each individual.

Leading up to the final week of 2011, there was optimism among U.S. hoteliers that performance for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve was expected to be strong. Now that HotelNewsNow.com’s parent company, STR, as well as other data researchers, have released performance numbers surrounding that timeframe. Let’s revisit the data to see exactly how hotels in the United States performed.

With the help of STR’s Jan Freitag and Pegasus Solutions’ Julie Parodi, we can examine which segments of the U.S. hotel industry celebrated the holidays with joy and cheer and which were more Scrooged. Also interesting to note is which U.S. markets within the country fared better and which weren’t able to capitalize on the holiday spirit.