World Hospitality Congress II: Pressures Profits, People
Abstract
"We're all trying to get a larger chunk of a diminish- ing pie. We have to figure out how to get more people to travel more often." -Man- uel Ferris, president, Howard Johnson Hotel Group. "We have to make the pie larger. You can economize an operation only so much." -Colgate Holmes, president, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. "Recent overbuilding leads one to wonder why so many people are building hotels who have no business doing it. Of course, it's always the other guy who shouldn't be building." -Paul Sheeline, chairman, Inter-Continental Hotels. "In the old days, an operator asked whether a hotel was needed and put his own money into it; he took the economic risk. Risk-taking now is enormously diffused. Who is pulling the strings in building all these hotels? There are the developers, who are eager to develop and get out; the feasibility artists, who concoct feasibility studies; the operators, who work primarily on a fee ba- sis-and Uncle Sam has be- come a risk-taking part- ner. "-Curt Strand, president, Hilton International. "The battle is going to be in diversification not of product but of marketing and mer- chandising. Finally the in- dustry is taking marketing seriously."-Jon