Seven hotels: 601 rooms between the locations: Santa Rosa, Columbia, Bismarck, Mt. Juliet, Corpus Christi, Lubbock-Southwest and Baton Rouge.

Hampton the national brand of more than 1,450 mid-priced Hampton Inn and Hampton Inn & Suites hotels, opened seven properties in January 2008, representing 601 new rooms.

The new openings include three Hampton Inn hotels and four Hampton Inn & Suites properties. All openings are franchised, newly constructed hotels.

"The year 2008 already is off to a strong start for the Hampton brand, as is evidenced by our opening of nearly two hotels per week," said Phil Cordell, senior vice president, Hampton brand management.

"We plan to build on the high levels of development activity we achieved in 2007 and hope to once again match or exceed the development pace we have maintained over the past decade.

"We continue to experience increased demand west of the Mississippi, as our Texas and New Mexico properties attest. We also continue to see sustained growth elsewhere, particularly in the southeastern United States."