Eric Oppegaard
By Larry Mogelonsky
During the 2008-2009 economic downturn, even though the future of most hotels was uncertain, the corrective actions for such times of hardship were not. Properties across the board responded to the lower occupancies and tightening of travelers’ purse strings by cutting costs in whichever way would balance the budget. Now, however, it would seem as though we are confronted with a mercurial problem, that of a flattening of pace.
Whereas the calamitous events of just shy of a decade ago hit us like an exploding hot lava volcano, this present day ‘flattening of pace’ is not nearly as visceral. Most hotels, corporations and even free independent travelers don’t want a repeat of the Great Recession by being left vulnerable or overexposed, and are thus proceeding almost too conservatively with any hospitality-related expenditures. When taken under a macro-lens, this amounts to market contractions with a slow but gradual increase in supply fighting over the same piece of pie. Like putting a frog in tepid water and slowing turning up the heat, it’s far too easy to dismiss this as a nonissue.
Larry Mogelonsky, eHotelier
Read the story at eHotelier.
