Bloomberg reported on Monday that Ian Schrager’s plan to further develop his Public brand is taking on a more definitive shape with deals in New York and London.

Schrager has reportedly agreed to buy a development site in New York City and is close to completing a second Manhattan deal. He did not offer details about the deals.

Last week, the Ian Schrager Co. won a US$119 (€ 87.5) million bid for the Crowne Plaza London Shoreditch (pictured) that likely will be the next Public location.

The first, Public Chicago had its official opening on Tuesday as part of Schrager’s overarching plan to develop 10 to 15 locations in the next five years.

Schrager has also hinted that he is getting close to naming a sizeable equity partner in his new venture.

Four new Aloft hotels around the world have pushed the brand past its landmark 50th hotel opening.

The “style-at-a-steal” brand from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which launched in 2008, is now debuting the Aloft New York Brooklyn, Aloft Zhengzhou Shangjie and Aloft Haiyang in China, and Aloft Coimbatore Singanallur in India, to reach 52 hotels around the world. Starwood expects to increase its Aloft portfolio to more than 70 hotels by 2013.

“Aloft Hotels’ success comes from rewriting the rules of our industry, from the unprecedented pace of new hotel openings to its complete reinvention of the select-service category,” said Simon Turner, president of global development for Starwood.  “Demand for Aloft in North America has been particularly healthy and the potential for additional growth in fast-growing economies like China and India is enormous.”

Aloft will continue its global expansion with six additional hotels slated to open by the end of 2011, each in an international market, including China, India, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Columbia, Panama, and Costa Rica.

The fastest-growing market for Aloft is Asia Pacific, which accounts for 12 of the 27 hotels in the brand’s current development pipeline. By the end of 2013, Aloft will have opened six additional new properties across China, including hotels in Yancheng, Haiyang, and Guangzhou, southern China’s largest city. In India, the brand will have four hotels by the end of 2011. The brand’s current Indian portfolio of three hotels will multiply to include the fast-growing urban hubs of Chandigarh and Bengaluru.

Dodd Mitchell Design and Development announces the launch of Kept Hotels & Resorts, a collaborative partnership with Sonesta International Hotels Corp.

Kept Hotels will compete in the deluxe lifestyle boutique hotel market with the renovation and repositioning of select urban and resort destination properties, primarily in the United States and Europe. The brand will be guided by Dodd Mitchell, founder of the eponymous design firm.

“This partnership is a collaborative force of talent years in the making and will offer an innovative turnkey solution to luxury hotel owners,” says John J. DePaul, Sonesta’s executive vice president of development and architect of the joint venture. “It will also provide our investment partners with an entry into a fragmented segment of the industry in need of fresh capital and leadership.”

Kept Hotels & Resorts will comprise properties of 80 to 300 guestrooms located in gateway cities and notable resort destinations throughout the United States and Europe, spanning a range of project types from conversions, to complete renovations, to property repositionings and rebrandings. Each property will provide locally influenced style and architecture through the use of local craftsmen and artisans, and will feature authentic hospitality, uniquely reflecting the environment of each destination.

“I was born to design—but my passion is service,” Mitchell says. “Sonesta provides decades of history for notable independent hotels and resorts, and in fact was the hotel owner and operator of such iconic hotels as the Plaza in New York and the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Service with passion is one of Sonesta’s core values, and this will be the engine behind Kept’s distribution and global reach.”

Dodd Mitchell Design, launched in 1995, is famous for designing spaces with earth in mind and for using innovative materials in unconventional ways. The firm fuses a palette of elemental and natural materials into seductive and unforgettable spaces.

From the floors of the Americas Lodging Investment Summit in San Diego, Advaya Hospitality unveiled a global lifestyle hotel brand today to an audience of industry insiders.

The brand, MODO Hotel, will make its debut in major markets around the world, starting with a minimum of five properties in India and another five in Brazil. Advaya also is in the early stages of establishing a fund to acquire strategic assets and build new hotels, targeting major U.S. markets like New York, Kansas City and Miami.

MODO presents a new take on hospitality that’s stylish, affordable and musically inspired. The brand will feature a striking urban, Bauhaus loft design. With its vast collection of vinyl records, CDs and MP3 content, MODO will showcase independent artists around the globe, promising a unique and entertaining travel experience.

Full-service MODO hotels will house 100 or more rooms, a lively restaurant-lounge,courtyard, pool, meeting and event space, library, retail shop and gym. Nightly rates will be in sync with today’s value-conscious travelers and the local markets. In the U.S., rates at full-service properties are targeted to range from $90 – $150 per night with the exception of some larger gateway cities. Additionally, a line of budget lifestyle lodgings will launch in international markets this year, creating a new niche of budget lifestyle hotels.

During the next three years, MODO will roll out in major metropolitan markets in Brazil. Five to ten 150-room hotels will be strategically located in the fastest growing cities of Sao Paulo, Campinas, Curitiba, Vitoria and Manaus. MODO in Brazil will be developed by the newly formed ABR Brazil LLC, a joint venture between MODO and BridgeRock Capital Management LLC.

Additionally, during the second half of this year, a MODO sister brand will premier in India, creating a new market niche of budget lifestyle hotels. Over the next three years, a minimum of five budget lifestyle hotels will launch in India under the MODO sister brand. The 60- to 80-room lodgings will have limited food and beverage offerings and small meeting rooms. They will be located in the cities of Chennai, Tuticorin, Kakinada, Vizag and Vellore.

Building costs for a full-service MODO hotel will be approximately $110,000 per key, including average land cost, with variations in major gateway cities. “That’s at least 20 percent less than those for other hotels in the same class,” saysJohn Russell, CEO for MODO and Advaya.

Franchising is slated to begin later this year. Additional expansion is planned through a combination of acquisitions, new development and conversions of existing properties. Among the target countries are China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

The highest-profile corporate espionage case in hotel industry history has been settled, rivals Hilton Worldwide and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide have announced.

The settlement, announced late Wednesday, seemingly ends the dramatic two-year-old saga over the creation of Hilton’s since-cancelled Denizen lifestyle hotel brand. Starwood alleged that Hilton misused trade secrets stolen by former executives Ross Klein and Amar Lalvani—both of whom played a role in the formation and expansion of Starwood’s W Hotels brand and who joined Hilton shortly before the Denizen concept was made public.

Under the agreement, Hilton is barred from working on an entrant into the lifestyle hotels segment until 2013, and federal court-appointed monitors will be tasked with ensuring Hilton complies. Hilton will also pay Starwood a cash sum, reported to be US$75 million. Starwood is also entitled to another US$75 million worth of management contracts from Hilton, according to The New York Times.

Furthermore, Hilton is prohibited from acquiring or managing any lifestyle-branded hotels currently in the Starwood portfolio for the next two years, except in cases where Starwood’s branding is terminated without Hilton’s involvement.

“Starwood is proud of its leadership position in creating lifestyle brands that connect with consumers, drive loyalty and are highly profitable for our owners,” says Starwood President and CEO Frits van Paasschen. “Given the facts, we had no choice but to stand up and protect our brands on behalf of our investors, associates, owners and customers. This settlement reinforces this protection and restores a level playing field for fair competition.”

For its part, Hilton President and CEO Chris Nassetta says the company “regrets” the dispute with Starwood. “Hilton Worldwide is committed to fair, ethical and robust competition in the marketplace, and we will continue to focus on what we do best: providing exceptional services for all of our guests around the world,” Nassetta says.

As for Klein and Lalvani—both named defendants, along with Hilton, in the lawsuit—they are permitted under the settlement to seek employment in the hotel industry, provided it is not with any of a list of agreed-upon companies. That list remains sealed, however.

Hilton is barred from hiring any Starwood employee to work in its Luxury & Lifestyle Brands Group, which includes Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Waldorf Astoria Collection and Conrad Hotels & Resorts, until 2013.

While the settlement ends the litigation between the two hotel industry powers, a criminal grand jury investigation into the case continues. However, prosecutors have privately told Hilton that it does not intend to bring criminal charges against the company, according to the Times.

Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second largest independent boutique hotel company in the country, has entered into a strategic capital partnership with Geolo Capital, the private equity investment arm of the John A. Pritzker family. Geolo Capital will take a majority stake in Joie de Vivre’s business and provide capital to fund the boutique hotel brand’s expansion outside of California.

As part of the transaction, Geolo Capital has established an investment fund with the objective of acquiring $300 million to $500 million of hospitality assets over the next five years. Geolo plans to double Joie de Vivre’s revenues and grow the number of managed properties over that time period from the current 33 in California to approximately 50 throughout the U.S., adding hotels and resorts in key gateway cities and resort markets through new third party management agreements, joint ventures, and acquisitions.

Under the agreement, John Pritzker, Geolo’s founding partner and director and a 25-year veteran of the hospitality industry, will become chairman of the company. Chip Conley, Joie de Vivre’s founder and CEO, will retain a significant ownership interest in Joie de Vivre and remain actively involved as CEO.

The partnership with Joie de Vivre gives Geolo Capital, which specializes in hospitality investments, a branded platform to both acquire and manage additional hotels and resorts. Last year the company acquired Carmel Valley Ranch, an iconic resort property on 400 acres of land in the lush Carmel Valley. The Ranch will join the Joie de Vivre Hotels collection this year as part of its luxury portfolio, which includes Joie de Vivre’s flagship property, Hotel Vitale in San Francisco.

“As soon as we purchased Carmel Valley Ranch I knew I wanted to replicate its magic and create an authentic lifestyle and resort brand that was experience-driven for customers and employees,” said Pritzker. “Then I found out that brand already existed – it’s called Joie de Vivre.”

Geolo sees tremendous opportunity for the Joie de Vivre brand across the three- to five-star spectrum, especially in the three-and-a-half star space where the boutique hotelier is “the best in the business,” said Pritzker.

Joie de Vivre is known for taking bland box or challenged hotels and transforming them into unique boutique properties that are an antidote to the vanilla experience offered by major chains. Each Joie de Vivre hotel is an original that reflects its location through creative design and amenities. The San Francisco-based company has created more three- and three-and-a-half star boutique hotels than any other hotel company.

“After 23 years of being a California hotel brand, we felt the time was right for Joie de Vivre to move outside the state. There are so many neglected gems and tired hotels that could be turned into appealing, affordable boutique properties,” said Conley. “With Geolo as our partner, we will be able to take advantage of the wave of hotel deals that are imminent, and we will have sufficient working capital to invest in our infrastructure to support our growth.”

Working with Joie de Vivre’s development team on the company’s strategic growth will be Geolo partner Gary Beasley, who spent seven years with KSL Resorts, where he was instrumental in acquiring and integrating over $800 million of hotel and resort properties.

“Our objective is to take advantage of what we believe will be one of the most attractive hotel buying cycles in a generation, and in the process create great hotels that offer both outstanding guest experiences as well as outstanding economic returns,” Beasley said. ” We look forward to working with Chip and the rest of the Joie de Vivre team to continue to build what we believe is one of the most dynamic and promising hospitality platforms around.”

In the works for almost three years, VENU is the name of Jumeirah’s Group lifestyle brand, which will be launched in Shanghai in 2011.

Jumeirah is in advanced stages of negotiation with developers interested in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific. Reports also have the brand coming to Dubai, not surprisingly, with Jumeirah strictly coming in as the management company.

“We see VENU as a natural extension of the Jumeirah brand that will enable us to expand into new markets while maintaining our core focus on operating luxury hotels” says Gerald Lawless, executive chairman for Jumeirah. “VENU is designed to deliver a compelling contemporary lifestyle experience offering ‘local soul’. This can be succesfully delivered in sufficients scale to ensure a strong business proposition for owners across the globe.”

The full service-concept is expected to have guestrooms at about 36m2 (388 sq ft), a restaurant, spa and the latest technology.