Excellent review on how quickly times have changed, and near-term prognosis
“Even as midprice hotels began losing business this past summer,” Sharkey writes, “ luxury hotels continued to fill their rooms. Companies treated the hotels as perks for top executives and quality locations for high-level business meetings. And many leisure travelers considered a stay at a top hotel — even for a couple of days — to be worth the cost.
Since mid-September, almost in parallel with the stock market turmoil, demand for fancy hotel rooms has plummeted.
Yes, Times have changed! Quicktime Sharkey takeaways:
Public indignation over big paydays and the lavish expenses of top executives hurts luxury hotel business. Companies concerned about perceptions, how it looks to others when employees stay in hotels whose very names evoke images of opulence
Financial services and other companies have quietly advised employees against using luxury hotels. Again, perception--- how it looks if you’re laying off 10 percent of your work force and you have people staying at $500-a-night or $1,000-a-night hotels Read More
But no! Along with our original find, (www.conradhotels.com), Newsweek writer Tiffanie Wen cites other underwater ventures, like Red Sea Star Restaurant and Bar in Eilat, Israel - (www.redseastar.com); the Lime Spa at Huvafen Fushi (www.huvafenfushi.com); and scheduled for late 2010, the $150 million Poseidon Undersea Resort in Fuji-nestled on the ocean floor. (www.poseidonresorts.com)
Last week, when OpenSkies, BA's boutique airline, launched flights from New York to Amsterdam. a batch of JoeSentMe contributors were onboard. They sat in business class. I was in prem+, the airline's premium economy section. Meanwhile, Karen Fawcett flew from New York to Paris on OpenSkies' other route. Then they returned on separate days in prem+ while I tested OpenSkies' business class on a return flight. We each wrote our own reviews, which all appear today.
“ None of us talked to each other during the flights or afterwards to avoid a "group think" mentality, “Joe said. “ We wrote and judged separately, without consulting the others.” Clever approach. Certainly appealed to me. So, here’s the link http://joe.biztravelife.com/joe.html
Peggy Noonan senses the frustration of a nation stuck at the airport and feeling abandoned by the institutions of democracy. Say’s SmartBrief’s Leadership newsletter of Oct.3. "All the frisking, beeping, and patting down is demoralizing to our society," the former speech writer to Ronald Reagan writes in a new book. "It breeds resentment, encourages a sense that the normal are not in control, that politics has lessened everything, including human dignity." MSNBC/"Today"
Poll Results from Smart Brief on Leadership - Sept 17,2008: What does lunch typically mean for you? (1,370 responses)
• Eating at my desk while plowing through e-mails -- 859 votes, 62.7%
• Social lunch with colleagues or friends -- 279 votes, 20.4%
• Working out at the gym or going for a run -- 110 votes, 8.0%
• Working lunch with colleagues -- 78 votes, 5.7%
• Sitting down for a meal with prospective clients or partners -- 44 votes, 3.2%
"We've become slaves to our e-mail. We have to spend lunchtime working down our inbox instead of relationship building with customers. Unless all these e-mails are from customers." Eva Schmatz, president, Summus Limited.
(Could this possibly happen in the land of luxury marketing? HS)
Melissa Bradley’s On My Mind message in the Sept-Oct issue of Indagare—family focused travel--just happened to be what was on my mind as I reviewed some of the most recent surveys on consumer travel behavior in a struggling economy.
In the November 3rd issue, covering the Latest Quarterly Survey from American Express Publishing/Harrison Group on Affluence and Wealth in America, is a most informative visit to spending in a troubled economy.
One thing that struck us, as we listened to the October 2 presentation, was how the term affluent covered so much territory - There is “ Bedrocks” Affluent, “Upper Middle Class” Affluent, “Pinnacle” Affluent, “Super” Affluent and finally, just plain Wealthy – all together, some 20 million households.
But Lux 360 Found a Brighter -and we think, Sensible Side-
From Harvey Chipkin’s report in the British online Hotel Report-a paid service from William Reed Business Media- http://www.wr-bi.co.uk/ - Reproduced here with publisher permission
At the first industry wide meeting following the fall financial meltdown and the recent presidential election, the consensus seemed to be that, yes, the industry faces a historically challenging situation that will last for awhile. But there was also a feeling that lodging is in a better position than other industries – and, happily, a few silver linings were perceived as well.
We’ve all heard the bad news over and over: global liquidity drought, drops in rate and occupancy, a dismal outlook for employment, and a possibly extended recession. But some leaders managed to find ways to take – if not a positive view -- at least a more nuanced one. Following are a few comments about why weeping and gnashing may not be the only appropriate attitudes.
Steve Joyce, who recently became CEO of Choice Hotels International, said he has been “the only optimistic person in the room at a number of events over the last few weeks.” I strongly believe,” said Joyce, “that there is a paralysis factor and that you can’t base projections on two weeks of hysteria.”
“Forecasts in this environment,” he continued, “are entertaining but not much use.”
Other ‘smart marketer’ insights from Joyce, Mark Lomanno of Smith Travel Research; Peter Yesawich, CEO of The Y Partnership; Michael Kaufman, Chairman of National Restaurant Association; Patrick Ford, CEO of Lodging Econometrics; and Roger Thomas, Steve Wynn’s design guru for many years.
Nat Ives, in Ad Age Online Sept 6, cites new data from Ipsos MMR which assures that well-off readers read print publications just as much now as they did 5 years ago.
Also, survey respondents making more than $100,000 annually said their average hours online had grown to 22.1 each week from 10.7, while the time they said they spent watching TV sunk to 18.6 hours from 23.7 in the 2003 survey. Read the full Ives story at http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=130685. Lux 360 attended the client briefing this week and will provide additional perspective in our Sept. 30 issue, interviewing Ipsos MMR President Bob Shullman.
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