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.