Tourism

The hospitality industry like every country and sector of the economy has been hit hard by the global financial meltdown. Resorts have specially been hit hard due to the luxurious nature of services and high prices thereby reducing their profitability and threatening of foreclosure and bankruptcy. Employment will also be hit hard due to this as corporate and individual clients cut back on costs and discourage board members and CEOs to stay at resorts or convene any meetings or stays. This trivial change has had some impact as resorts try to find footing in these tough economic times relying on technology and information media to help them gain access to more customers and manage demand.

Changing Trends in the Hospitality Industry
The hospitality industry primarily consists of food services, accommodations, tourism and vacations. Hotels, motels, restaurants, and resorts all come under the banner of hospitality industry. After the financial meltdown of the global economy more and more countries around the world are either going bankrupt, or using stimulus packages and bailout money to put the economy back on its feet. Every sector of the economy from manufacturing to services has suffered from this financial crisis. In these tough times, the hospitality industry which is a great source of revenue for the economy and not only provides entertainment but also creates employment has also been hit hard. The hospitality industry maintains tourism and travel as its competitive advantage. As more individuals and corporate companies try to cut back on luxuries and other unnecessary expenditures, the hospitality industry has been facing some huge problems as its customer base and services they have to offer also plummet. Resorts are suffering even more since resorts are usually thought of as opulent places with lush scenery, spas and other luxuries for complete unwinding.

The drop in bookings was exacerbated by the retreat in the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) sector including the well-publicized call-outs of luxury resorts in Las Vegas and California catering to incentive travel (Sobin, 2010) Companies used to pay for their employees and executives to stay in world class hotels and resorts however this is not the case anymore. The business outlook for 2010 has become highly unpredictable with economies hoping to set on the course of recovery whereas employees worry about their job security and promotions, stakeholders feel the need to move the company in the right direction by cutting on luxury expenditures and focusing on performance to avoid bankruptcy and closure and suppliers are concerned about the demands of their goods and services (Easdale, 2010)

The key to keeping demand intact is in demand management. For the purpose of generating future demand, demand management involves marketing to past customers and encouraging them to directly or indirectly recommend others. It also means treating loyal customers differently and more favorably when implementing yield management. Finally, it means reaching out to past customers in personalized ways during off-peak periods with attractive value driven packages and programs and maintaining control over availability posted with intermediaries during peak periods so that loyal customers may use the inventory. Keeping the demand funnel full requires understanding where both loyal and new customers shop for and book services (Carroll  Noden, 2010)

Demand can be managed by making a few tweaks in this case to keep the hospitality industry and the businesses booming with customers. One way to tackle the cutback on costs by companies and individuals is that resorts are now dropping the word resort from their titles to attract local and international corporate clients for doing business with them in order to generate revenue and sustain in these tough economic conditions, for example, The Ballantyne Resort in Charlotte, N.C., changed its name during the summer to the Ballantyne Hotel  Lodge after several corporate clients indicated it would have a better chance of landing their business if it werent called a resort. Same for the Westin Stonebriar near Dallas, formerly the Westin Stonebriar Hotel  Resort (Hudson, 2010)

However, it has not meant that the services offered by these businesses have changed. Only the name has been changed in order to drop the image of a luxury commodity and make it seem more viable for cost conscious consumers. The hospitality industry has had to undertake such trivial changes signals to the fact that dire circumstances persist as many properties face the looming sword of foreclosure and bankruptcy.
The resort stigma was stoked by widespread outcry late in 2008 about a 400,000 sales retreat that HYPERLINK httponline.wsj.compublicquotesmain.htmltypedjnsymbolAIG American International GroupInc. planned to host at the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort in Dana Point, California. Amid great criticism, AIG, the recipient of 180 billion in taxpayer assistance, canceled the event. The 400-room St. Regis couldnt recover from the bad publicity and was foreclosed upon by one of its lenders, HYPERLINK httponline.wsj.compublicquotesmain.htmltypedjnsymbolC CitigroupInc. Politicians railed against companies, especially those that got federal aid, meeting at resorts in expensive locales like Las Vegas. In turn, companies and government agencies revised travel policies to discourage, if not prohibit, resort stays further rendering a blow to the hospitality industry. There has been a 22.6 decline in revenue per available room and a drop in occupancy of 8.9 percentage points to 58.1, according to Smith Travel Research (Hudson, 2010)
One solution to this problem could be using social media. Distressed hotels and resorts should post unfilled room inventory on Twitter. Ultimately this fills up the planes and hotels and drives more revenue. People around the world are using applications like HYPERLINK httpwww.tripit.com t _blank TripItand HYPERLINK httpwww.dopplr.com t _blank Dopplrto announce their travel intentions and plans to their friends well before the journey actually takes place. As an executive at a travel company, what more could you ask for than the intentions of a prospective customer to travel to a destination you serve Because most of these applications have open APIs, hotels can pull the data being submitted and build custom applications using it (Nigam, 2010)

Thus, the removal of the title resort and has led to a swing in business for some. The hospitality industry also needs to look into new areas of technology and information so that it can attract customers and boost traffic thereby increasing revenues and not collapsing in the financial meltdown of other giant companies. The need of the hour is to cater to the increasingly cost cutting strategies employed by companies around the globe and present a serious image.