Random thoughts from the meeting rooms and hallways of this week’s America Lodging Investment Summit in San Diego:
• Despite new forecasts of a 10-percent dip in RevPAR for the year, few speakers spoke of the hard-to-swallow numbers. Rather, the talk was when the industry turnaround will begin, not if or even how. This isn’t a crowd given to hand wringing or quiet sobbing. The prevailing sentiment is that as a group of smart, creative and experienced entrepreneurs, the hotel industry will find a way out of its current problems, that tomorrow will be better than today, that the cycle will turn and that prosperity will reign again. Is this all healthy optimism or one of the stages of grief? Time will tell.
• Hotel brand and operator companies alike are moving swiftly and decisively to mitigate the effects of the downturn. A number of operators, including Robert Habeeb of First Hospitality and Doug Dreher of The Hotel Group, told me they’re aggressively increasing their sales and marketing efforts and resources, including requiring general managers to take a more-prominent role in sales. On the brand level, Andy Cosslett, InterContinental Hotel Group’s Chairman Andy Cosslett said the company increased its worldwide sales staff by 30 percent “as a quick and effective way to shift business into our hotels.”
• Even executives immersed in the transactions market see opportunity in an environment that doesn’t appear to have much. Steven Mckenzie of Eastdil Secured told an audience that when it comes, the rebound in the transactions market will be “even more dramatic than the period following the recession of the early 1990s. Unlike then, we have no supply issues and there are billions of dollars waiting on the sidelines for the right opportunities.” Still Rob Koger of Molinaro Koger made what may be the best argument to acquire hotels: “If you think we’re heading into a depression, you should sell everything; if you think we’re in a recession, buy everything.”

A stunned audience at today’s opening session of Americas Lodging Investment Summit heard a hard-to-believe prediction from economist Todd Buchholz: the economy will begin to turnaround “in time for the back-to-school sales.” Hardly any forecast I’ve heard or read in the past few months have been anywhere as optimistic as what Buchholz presented.
Buchholz, who is a former White House economic advisor and a prolific writer, argues that the current recession won’t be either as severe or as long-lasting as the downturn of the early 1980s, when unemployment bottomed-out at nearly 11 percent. He gave three reasons: the current job market isn’t as dire as it was in 1982; real consumer earnings are actually increasing; and commodity prices are collapsing. And as a final chunk of manna for a starving audience Buchholz offered the thought that “dangerous, tumultuous times breed opportunities for prosperity and innovation.”
Following his presentation, one could feel a palpable lightening of mood among the 2,000-or-so attendees. Perhaps it’s true that the power of positive thinking is, well, a powerful thing. While I don’t necessarily share Buchholz’s optimistic timetable, I, too, feel better about things after listening to him.

Guestroom 2010, the futuristic showcase at the Hospitality International Technology Exposition & Conference in Austin, Texas, lacks a bedside phone. What it showcases instead is an antique intercom box, a symbolic display indeed.
The reason? The guestroom telephone won’t be around, according to Frank Wolfe, the Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals executive who coordinates HITEC. “We believe that the traditional phone…will not exist in the guestroom of the future,” Wolfe said June 17, the first day of HITEC.
Brenda Burke, a former Hilton executive who sits on the panel selecting commodities to feature Guestroom 2010, said the committee initially sought to find a bedside phone with “big numbers” to make it easy to dial operator or 911, but couldn’t find one. “Who uses the phone in their room anymore?” she said. “Especially now that you can get your alarm clock by voice.”
How will vendors of traditional telephones react to this decision? “We don’t have to be right,” said Wolfe. “We just have to stimulate conversation.”

New York City’s infamous Bellevue Hospital may become a hotel. City development officials are trying to find a developer to turn the 77-year-old former mental institution (it closed in the mid-1980s) on First Avenue between 29th and 30th streets into a lodging property that would serve visitors to other nearby hospitals and medical businesses.

According to Fox News, the city planners originally thought to convert the building to condos but found that the layout of a mental hospital—long corridors and not-very-large rooms—makes it more conducive to use as transient lodging.

New York City’s infamous Bellevue Hospital may become a hotel. City development officials are trying to find a developer to turn the 77-year-old former mental institution (it closed in the mid-1980s) on First Avenue between 29th and 30th streets into a lodging property that would serve visitors to other nearby hospitals and medical businesses.

According to Fox News, the city planners originally thought to convert the building to condos but found that the layout of a mental hospital—long corridors and not-very-large rooms—makes it more conducive to use as transient lodging.