Originally Posted by
betts
I've been trying to find other presentations Heywood Sanders has given and am coming up without much. However, he's as busy as the convention hotel consultants. They say you need it, he says you don't. While he says he's never heard a consultant say a city doesn't need a convention center hotel, I can't find one instance where he says you need one.....or a new convention center. It would be refreshing to see either either side of this argument actually find one instance where their usual recommendation is not applicable.
In Tucson:
"Sanders gave a 30-minute presentation saying convention centers have been overbuilt nationally, with their supply far outstripping demand.
Because of this, convention hotels have to resort to offering steep discounts on third-party sites such as Priceline and Expedia as a way to stay full, Sanders said.
He produced receipts showing he stayed at convention-center hotels in Houston and St. Louis for $50 to $56 a night during midweek. In Phoenix, he stayed at the Hyatt for only $42 a night midweek, he said."
Sound familiar?
He does not say what month he got these prices, nor what year. For example, I would not stay in Phoenix in July or August for any price. But, I did a bit of checking.
To stay at the Phoenix convention center hotel on a Wednesday in February of this year, Pricline's lowest price is $217 and the highest $274.
To stay at the Houston convention center hotel on a weeknight in April, prices start at $93. Houston is the city whose convention center debt was paid off the first year. They're actually building a second hotel.
St. Louis convention center hotel went bankrupt.....in 2008. Recognize that year?
I posted hotel rates elsewhere for convention center hotels for Denver and Charlotte that Priceline had listed at a minimum of $150, with some rooms as high as $275.
As I said elsewhere, hotel rooms are like airline seats. One person may get a very good price on an airline ticket. Does that mean every other person in the airplane paid what the person with the lowest price seat paid? Unlikely. There are people in first class, and higher priced seats. Even Southwest has three different price ranges for seats.
Someone who uses Priceline's "Name your own price" option is likely not paying the same price as every other person in the hotel. Hotels can greatly discount some rooms that are unbooked at the last minute or that are available on the off season. But someone in the hotel is likely paying for your discount by paying the highest rate.
So, Heywood Sanders is using misleading information to make his point. He is implying that convention center hotels are all forced to rent all their rooms at a massive discount. Why? Why not just use the truth to make your point? It certainly raises the question of whether he can prove his point using the truth. Isn't this similar to what he is accusing the convention hotel consultants of doing - using flawed data to make a point? So just maybe the truth is somewhere in between and people should be careful who they listen to.
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