If you want to pamper someone special this Valentine’s Day season, you might consider a weekend in Newport, where one hotel has turned the evening bath into something straight out of a romance novel. more

Roughly 130 Fulbright Scholar Program participants from across 60 countries will call the city of Providence home for the weekend in a move to create interaction and dialogue with local residents. more

“We brought home a silver but it should have been gold,” lamented Joseph Leonardi, executive chef of the Somerset Club in Boston. The competitor was reflecting on a successful performance, but the memory of finishing second overrode his triumph. Leonardi was back at his alma mater, Johnson & Wales University, on Jan. 16 to be honored as a distinguished visiting chef. But what everyone wanted to talk to Leonardi about was his stint as captain of Team USA. The team competed in the Culinary Olympics last summer in Erfurt, Germany, that was held just after those London athletic games, which received just a bit more media coverage. more

“We’ll take a booth, please.” According to restaurant designers, one of the appeals of booths is that they can create perceived barriers between us and the rest of the diners in the restaurant. A booth can give at least the perception of privacy. The conventional wisdom from the other side of the table is that restaurant guests want to be able to carry on private conversations and enjoy their own personal space, even when they’re out in public. more

The long fight over legalizing same-sex marriage in the Ocean State has a host of social, moral, political and even religious consequences that inevitably enflames the debate. more

(Updated, 10 a.m.) Providence posted an 81.3 percent hotel occupancy rate for October, the second time it has surpassed an 80 percent rate since October 2004, according to an analysis just released by Smith Travel Research. more

Rhode Island’s projected 2.3 percent restaurant-sales growth for 2012 is among the worst in the country, besting only Vermont and West Virginia, at 2.2 percent each, and can be at least partially blamed on its slow population growth and high unemployment rate, according to National Restaurant Association research. more

In a world of tweets, posts and texts, the face-to-face lunch meeting is still a staple of how business gets done in Rhode Island, according to Dale Venturini, president of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association. more

These days it’s not unusual to find a corporate sales force gathered in a meeting room at Newport’s International Tennis Hall of Fame. They’ll listen to a pep talk about upcoming goals, and then blow off some steam hitting balls on the museum’s courts. more

In a state so dependent on its hospitality and tourism industry, convention business is of more than a little consequence. more