With 25 years of experience in hospitality consulting � providing strategic planning, development consulting, real estate and investment services � Burba is well known and highly regarded throughout the worldwide hotel industry.  He is co-founder and chair of UCLA Extension's Annual Hotel Industry Investment Conference and UCLA's Annual Latin America & Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Investment Forum, as well as founder of the International Hotel Investment Forum held each year in Berlin.  He is also advisor to other hotel investment conferences.  

�The addition of Jim Burba to the WAT&G team and the expansion of the firm's capabilities to provide advisory services,� states WAT&G president and chief executive officer Ron Holecek, �allows us to meet the business needs of our clients and provide a range of services under one roof that previously has not been available.  It is a natural evolution of WAT&G's 55 years of focus on serving the needs of the hospitality industry.�  

Based in WAT&G's Newport Beach office, serving clients worldwide, Burba will be heading up a team of specialists to assist clients with a range of consulting services, including: financial and investment strategies; market feasibility analyses; financing and joint venture assistance; hotel management company selection and negotiation; renovation and expansion analyses; due diligence studies and reports; tourism studies and master plans; facilities planning and programming; asset and portfolio management.

Prior to joining WAT&G, Jim Burba was senior managing director for Insignia/ESG Hotel Partners, and earlier was a principal at Pannell Kerr Forster (PKF).  He is a member of the board of trustees of the Educational Institute of the AH&MA and recipient of its Lamp of Knowledge Award.  He also serves on AH&MA's prestigious IREFAC committee.  A member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants, Mr. Burba was previously president of the Travel & Tourism Marketing Association.  He graduated from The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University and earned his MBA from UCLA.

�I have long respected the outstanding work of WAT&G,� states Burba, �and am excited by the synergistic benefits of offering advisory services to WAT&G's current and prospective clients.�  

WAT&G is recognized as the world's number one planning, design and consulting firm specializing in hospitality, leisure and entertainment, according to World Architecture magazine.  Since its founding in 1945, WAT&G has worked on projects in 119 countries and territories.  The firm has completed more hotels and resorts than any other design consultancy anywhere.