International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show

I just returned from my first time attending the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show in New York City. I’ve always heard great things about it and how there were so many people that it was hard to walk down the aisles. Well…the show was well organized, education sessions were good, and there were some good networking. But, I was disappointed in the number of sellers and buyers.

Hey, I'm not knocking the show, I just believe this is an indication of how things are for now and the immediate future due to the economy. We all know that capital dollars have been very tight in 2009. Since attendance among buyers was down, it seems that there is some concern that capital dollars might also be tight in 2010…at least early in the year.

There is also concern from the seller’s side of the fence. I talked to many people that have attended in prior years, and they said that the exhibits used to cover a much larger portion of the Javits Center. As I walk a tradeshow floor, it is pretty easy to tell how much money people are spending. If you walk down an aisle and the vendors come out into the aisle after you, then either they have a poor product or no one is buying. Well, it was clear buyers were rare because I felt like I needed shoulder pads and a helmet to make it to the end of an aisle. I had vendors walking in front of me giving me a “hard” sales pitch as I walked by their booths. I didn't even get to pick up any cool little gifts for fear of losing a limb. I understand that there were a large number of repeat exhibitors this year but economic times required them to have smaller booths. This year, HFTP an avid supporter of the show, made the decision to forgo building our Guestroom 20x exhibit in order to be conservative with our budgets. In these economic times, it is clear we made the right decision.

The good news for those of us doing business in New York is that room rates seem to be stabilizing. Even with the economy being down, some of the hotels in the room block were getting almost $400 a night. Granted, this might be much less than we’d like, but at least there does seem to be some pressure to help keep room rates stable. Many of the hospitality companies have halted or reduced the amount of travel authorized within their company so many of the people that attended were transient from nearby Boston, New Jersey, etc., or perhaps the room rates could have gone even higher.

I've read several articles that say we may slip even more in 2010 before we start climbing out of the hole in 2011. While this may or may not be true, 2009 was a very tough year for the all of us in the hospitality industry. Hopefully, 2010 will be much better. I’d like to know your opinion if you’d like to share it.

Terry