Any updates on the hotel block?
kindof off subject (apologies) but what’s latest with the Hilton Garden downtown? Is that still a thing or is that been scrapped? I noticed that block has pretty much been cleared now
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All the hotels downtown are basically in a holding pattern. I find it kind of frustrating. The pandemic isn’t going to continue for years on end, and hotels take awhile to build.
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I’m with you. Takes at least a year to build. Banks are overly nervous about lending.
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Playing devils advocate, business travel MIGHT take 5-10 years to reach prior levels because of everybody being forced to use and acclimate towards teams/Webex/zoom meetings.
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You make a very good point.
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Vaccines will help cut that time frame in half if all goes smoothly and a majority of population takes it.
Not sure if usiness Travel will ever bounce back to where it was. Companies have learned that you can do remote meetings just fine. And now everyone’s had a year’s worth of practice.
There will be a good bit that comes back. But for a bunch of meetings where you would fly somewhere, to meet with a client for a few hours, spend the night, and then fly back. Accountants are going to look at the cost and say, ‘Can you do it over zoom?’.
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Ehh, I think there may be even more travel than before. More leisure travel for sure due to pent up demand and a super heated economy. Business travel, we shall see, but I’m betting it will return. The US economy is on a precipice of a boom due to increased productivity. I have never been more bullish about the future. Free economies adapt. Don’t fall into the doom and gloom camp. Those that did in March certainly regret those decisions now…
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I can see both sides of the coin as it relates to business-travel. One one hand, my previous few jobs were remote, and some of my friends are as well. On the other hand, in my last job the client wanted half the team to spend every other week in Boston. Our team had actually been almost fully remote a couple years prior, but the client didn’t like it, and specifically required that they get more face-time (at their expense) when renewing the contract a few years ago. And the remote work that I and my friends and colleagues had been doing were already remote, so COVID didn’t really drive any change there.
Counterintuitively, rising adoption of remote-work may actually increase business travel in a way. Someone going into the office every day has to live close enough to never need to get on a plane and rent a hotel room to be there in-person, whereas someone working remotely might need to do so regularly to attend the quarterly all-hands meeting.
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Same reason I don’t go buy a bunch of apple/amazon/whatever stock, liquidity. most companies that build hotels also run hotels, and companies that run hotels don’t have a lot of surplus cash sitting around to build new ones, even if they can expect the new hotel to be profitable.
I agree that leisure travel will boom once the vaccine is widely available. People will be ready to travel after mnore then a year of being stuck in the house.
Business travel will rebound too. just not at the same level as it was before. Now that’s just my opinion o course. There will defeintly be business travel again. But a good percentage of meetings that you would have travelled to in the past, will now go virtual. not sure if 10% or 50%, but it won’t be 0%. Not becasue people are afraid to travel, but just becasue businesses have learned that for a lot of things, virtual meetings are pretty effective, and not having to travel is a lot cheaper.
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Another devil’s advocate perspective…
Many booming companies are vying for talent, and many young educated folks want to travel. I can see business travel as a perk in the post covid world where winning talent is more important than cutting dollars on meetings. I have several friends that went from traveling half of the year to being locked down, and they cannot wait to get back to the old ways.
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I can almost guarantee sales travel will be one of the first to return. Sure, some companies have shifted their sales to virtual but companies competing for customers will always go after an edge and in-person meetings are critical for certain types of sales.
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Don’t forget America’s obsession with sports. NC State football & basketball; while mired in mediocrity for the most part have a loyal fan base who should be desperate to get the hell out of their houses when they can!!!
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I’m dying to go see my “mediocre” Wolfpack! At least we attend regardless of whether we are up or down.
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Yep. No such thing as a fair weather Wolfpack fan. Our support way surpasses our results.
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It builds character and toughness #HTT
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Well when the economy get back in shape, there start building again!!! However if Downtiwn South goes through we’re have to build these hotels cause demands going up. And the City If Raleigh 40-story hotel and office tower projects is on hold for now!!!
i guess the best shopping is still outside of downtown proper? maybe thats why more lux hotels are out further?