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August 10, 2026
N E W S By Jordan Bradley
At Least 16 Cars Broken Into at Durham Hotel
Guests at a Durham, North Carolina, hotel woke to an unpleasant surprise on the morning of August 2. At least 16 cars were broken into while parked overnight in the parking lot of the Hampton Inn & Suites off Cole Mill Road. According to reports from local news outlet WRAL, guests reported hearing car alarms going off around 4 a.m., and saw several people wearing black breaking into vehicles parked
NOLA Marriott continued from page 1
rooms at the New Orleans Marriott began on July 14, 2025, and was a methodical process, Scott Jernstrom, Director of Sales and Marketing for the New Orleans Marriott and the neighboring Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, told USAE. “At any given point in time, we had anywhere between five—and sometimes six—floors of guest rooms out of order” for renovations, Jernstrom said. With an average of 28 guest rooms per floor, contractors began renovations at the top of each of the New Orleans Marriott’s hotel towers and were able to isolate the work between two floors so as to keep guest disturbance to a minimum. Once the process was started, the team had the first fully renovated guest room completed approximately three and a half weeks later, Jernstrom estimated. As contractors fell into a rhythm with the renovation, and “every week, we would get one new, renovated floor back.” That attention to detail extends throughout the process, ensuring that guests are minimally impacted, Jernstrom said. Jernstrom has been with the New Orleans Marriott since 2012, spent around 20 years with Marriott in
Renovated King guest room
at the hotel. Representatives from the Hampton Inn & Suites did not return USAE calls for comments by press deadline. However, a representative of the company that operates the hotel and its Home2Suites neighbor, Daly Seven, told a local news outlet that the break-ins happened in less than six minutes and that the hotel’s security officer was unable to respond. “At the time of the incident, our overnight security associate was conducting a routine property patrol
Washington, D.C., and did a decade stint in commercial real estate, becoming familiar with the process of renovations at hotels that host large meetings and events. During the renovation process at the hotel, Jernstrom said, a moment with Host Hotels & Resorts Chairman David Marriott stood out to him. After three different model rooms were created of the renovations, Marriott stopped by and provided feedback. “One of the things that struck me that he said was, ‘When you wake up in the morning, how do you know that you’re in New Orleans?’ So [it’s the] little design elements—like the carpet and the wall coverings—that remind you. There’s this gold fleck that looks a little celebratory.” Guest room renovations at a property like the New Orleans Marriott happen, on average, every eight to 10 years, Jernstrom said. In the case of the New Orleans Marriott, guest room renovations don’t have as significant of an impact on group business as one might expect. “The 150 guest rooms that are out of order in a 1,300-room hotel—most of those rooms we would be selling those to much shorter term, transient customers, leisure customers, as opposed to groups that are booked years in advance,” Jenstrom said. “Our room block commitments, generally, don’t exceed
on another area of the hotel when a guest notified us that vehicle breakins were taking place,” Noel Anderson, Vice President at Daly Seven, told WRAL. Witnesses said the thieves were targeting large SUVs and trucks, and they were going back and forth between the vandalized vehicles and a gray-colored car. Anderson told WRAL a similar break-in happened days earlier on July 30. After the August 2 incident, hotel staff were working with law
enforcement to review procedures, he said. At press deadline, the Durham Police Department had not made any arrests in connection to the break-ins. Representatives of the Triangle Area Hotel Motel Association (TAHMA), whose members are located within the Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh region, known as the Triangle, did not respond to USAE request for comment by deadline. In Durham’s neighboring Chapel Please turn to page 3
The renovated New Orleans Marriott M Club
much more than about 1,000 to 1,100 rooms on a peak night. There could be exceptions to those, but there’s really no displacement or disruption on the group side of the equation.” Looking forward, Jernstrom said that the New Orleans Marriott team is “looking at pinning down dates” for meeting and event space renovations
in the future—“even though it’s really in great condition”—and some refurbishment of the lobby. “We haven’t firmed anything up yet,” Jernstrom said. “The scope of that is being studied right now by the ownership, and exactly what’s going to be involved there.”
Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance Launches ECA Ambassadors Circle By Jonathan Trager The Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA), the public policy voice of the U.S. business and professional events industry, announced on August 5 the launch of the ECA Ambassadors Circle. The ECA Ambassadors Circle will provide a select group of industry leaders with access to specialized year-round programming, advanced advocacy training, and new opportunities to help amplify the industry’s voice with policymakers, peers, and the broader business and professional events community. “The future of our industry will be shaped by decisions made in Washington, D.C., and in state capitals across
the country,” said Fernando Fischer, President, Americas, for RX and Chair of the ECA Board of Directors. “The ECA Ambassadors Circle will give our most committed advocates the tools, access, and year-round opportunities to help ensure those decisions reflect the importance of business and professional events. It is exactly the kind of deeper industry engagement that ECA 2.0 is all about.” The inaugural ECA Ambassadors Circle cohort includes 28 business and professional events industry leaders who’ve demonstrated a strong commitment to advocacy and public policy engagement, according to ECA. Ambassadors will play a leadership role in advancing ECA’s advocacy efPlease turn to page 3