Good Stuff from Joan Eisenstodt

what are the rest of us to do?

 As I read this article in the 10-5 New York Times, and saw that there was concern even in Dubai, an oil-rich nation that has boomed in ways that to some of us are a bit obscene, I wondered about my town - Washington, DC - and others like Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, Portland, etc. - and how we will survive this economic downturn.  [I gather we can't officially use the word 'crash' without causing angst among many.  It sure feels like a crash to me.] 

Remember diagramming sentences?  You'd show how each piece related  to the others?  I thought about diagramming what happens to a city in a market such as the one we are in, connecting each piece to others.  It occurred to me to do this when the price of oil went higher and many municipalities could not afford to pay for gas for critical city workers.  If cities are struggling to pay for gas for police and fire and other emergency workers .. if city streets are in disrepair .. if workers have no method by which to get to work OR are so stressed from their own economic woes that providing customer service becomes a chore - and so it goes...on and on.

Consider too the corporate or association meetings that do not meet their blocks and the hotels that can't (financially) afford to waive or lower attrition charges - will those companies and organizations potentially bite the dust, leaving many unemployed?

Is our industry trying to paint a rosy picture to help everyone believe we will come out of this quickly?  Various predictions show a tough time ahead. Even Marriott's profit predictions sagged due to a lower rev par.   

Is anyone else talking about this? Planning what to do?