It has more to do with the increased pressure from competing destinations, such as Las Vegas and San Diego. They're all competing for a share of the leisure-travel dollar.
Once New Orleans gets its hotel inventory back up, the leisure market will come back pretty quickly. The bad news is that meeting planners who book group (meetings and conventions and package tours) business years ahead of time, will steer clear of New Orleans between August and October for years. That will be very hard to overcome.
This speaks volumes about the challenges contemporary families have simply coordinating schedules . . . and the premium they place on the increasingly limited leisure time they spend together.
It's a sign that the market has matured sufficiently to support that level of product.
The competition is clearly raising the bar. That is the case in Orlando with the upper-end hotels that have come along in the last five years.
People expect to see something a little nicer in a hotel room than they have at home. During the past five to seven years, people have spent a lot on enhancing their homes. So it is harder for hotel operators to keep up with things that people have installed in their own houses.
The good news is that they're still going to vacation. The challenge is they're going to vacation differently. We're going to find that more and more they will spend less.
Obviously, that's where the opportunity is for Denver, given the new convention center. It catapults Denver into the national spotlight. I'd hit the accelerator hard on that.
Age-appropriate activities and attractions are very important to this group of family travelers.
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