We commenced operations in July 2004. Since our formation, we believe that we have enhanced the value of our portfolio by being open and transparent in our communications with investors, monitoring our corporate overhead and following corporate governance best practices. We believe that we have the most transparent disclosure in the industry, consistently going beyond the minimum legal requirements and industry practice; for example, we provide quarterly operating performance data on each of our hotels enabling our investors to evaluate our successes and our failures. In addition, we have been able to acquire and finance our hotels, asset manage them, complete close to $200 million of capital expenditures on time and on budget, and comply with the complex accounting and legal requirements of a public company with only 18 employees and total corporate expenses in 2007 of $13.8 million. Finally, we believe that we comply with best practices in corporate governance in that we have an active and majority-independent Board of Directors that is elected annually, we do not have any corporate or statutory anti-takeover devices and our directors and officers own a meaningful amount of our stock. In 2007, we explored several strategic alternatives, including the potential acquisition of two separate lodging companies as well as the potential sale of our company to a private equity firm.

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