Hotel occupancy will increase in 2007 as more and more baby boomers retire, predicts University of Alabama hotel management expert Kim Boyle.

“Baby boomers have more time, are more travel-educated, and have more money to spend than any previous generation in the past,” says Boyle, assistant professor of restaurant, hotel and meetings management in the UA College of Human Environmental Sciences.

Boyle also predicts this year’s fad of hotels offering plush bedding will increase among all hotel chains.

“I predict that so many hotels will jump on this bandwagon that guests won’t be able to distinguish between one property’s plush bedding and another’s, so it will lose its effectiveness in drawing business,” she says.