Hyatt Corp. sells time-share operations
Hyatt Residential Group, specializing in fractional ownership, or time-share operations, has been sold to Miami-based Interval Leisure Group for $190 million.
The Hyatt residential operation markets and manages 16 vacation ownership properties in Hawaii, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Texas and Puerto Rico.
ILG also will acquire Hyatt’s interest in a joint venture that owns and is developing a 131-unit vacation ownership project on Maui, for which ILG will pay Chicago-based Hyatt an additional $35 million. As a result of the transactions, ILG will serve as Hyatt’s exclusive licensee in vacation ownership. Following the transaction’s closure, Hyatt’s management team will continue to operate the businesses under ILG leadership.
Big Isle among Expedia travelers’ top picks
Hawaii island is the second-favorite choice of leisure destination among some 6,000 users of the Expedia.com travel site. Expedia officials recently asked thousands of its most frequent travelers, who collectively took more than 25,000 trips, about their most and least favorite airports, cities with the best and worst food-and-beverage offerings, and their favorite leisure and business destinations, among other questions.
Some 63 percent of respondents said going on vacation is more important now than it was two years ago.
The only list in which any Hawaii reference appears in the top five is the leisure destination list, topped by Las Vegas. Coming in after Hawaii were San Francisco, New York and Orlando, Fla.
The favorite airport of the Expedia elite is Atlanta, which also offers their favorite food and beverage options. However, Atlanta also was chosen as the least favorite airport, while Los Angeles International Airport was cited as having the worst food and beverage offerings.
New York was the favorite destination for business and also the most favored destination for food and drink.
Service enables remote-control energy use
One of the startup companies participating in Hawaii’s Energy Excelerator program is rolling out a service on Oahu that will allow residents with mobile devices to remotely control energy use and monitor activity in their homes with video cameras.
California-based People Power is making its Presence service, complete with software and hardware, available to the first 600 qualified Oahu residents at no charge as part of a yearlong pilot program. The service is valued at $375 a year.
Participants must have a Wi-Fi router and a mobile device. Oahu residents can see whether they qualify for the program by going to www.oahu.presencepro.com.
People Power was one of 15 companies selected to participate in the 2014 class of the federally funded Energy Excelerator program, which is run by the nonprofit Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, based in Honolulu.
Participants will receive People Power’s Presence mobile application and several Monster Central brand smart outlets that can remotely control devices plugged into them.
Preliminary studies show the system can cut up to 20 percent off a typical electric bill, according to People Power.
Apple in talks to purchase Beat Electronics
Apple is in discussions to buy Beats Electronics, the company behind the popular Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, for $3.2 billion, according to people briefed on the talks, in what would be the biggest acquisition in Apple’s history.
The deal would also include the new Beats Music streaming service, which was introduced in January as a competitor to Spotify and Pandora, and could signal an effort by Apple to transform its approach to music more than a decade after it opened the iTunes download store.
A deal has not been consummated, and the negotiations could still fall apart, according to these people, who declined to be identified speaking about it publicly. But if it is completed, the sale could be announced as early as next week, the people said. Apple and Beats declined to comment.
ON THE MOVE
Bank of Hawaii has announced:
>> Karen Frampton has been promoted to vice president from assistant vice president in the?Maui Commercial Banking Center.
>> Keene Fujinaka has been promoted to vice president from assistant vice president in the Island of Hawaii Commercial Banking Center.
>> Helen Kim has been hired as a vice president and wealth adviser team leader in the private client services of the private wealth administrative team.
