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Let's Hope for a Better Year in 2011

The Lunar New Year starts on February 3 in 2011. Many Chinese are hoping this year, which is the Year of Rabbit, will bring them better fortune and help them recover from the recession. According to some Feng Shui masters, the Year of Rabbit means somewhat conservative prospective. Usually, a rabbit makes a move, then stops and looks round the surroundings (to make sure everything around him/her is safe), and finally makes another move. Similarly, the market is predicted to move upward, and then pause for a while before the market moves to an even upper level. Is that truth? Honestly, I don’t know, but I can tell you what the survey says.

It is reported in this MSNBC News video that 2011 will be a better year for the travel and tourism industry. Both business and leisure travelers are expected to travel more often and spend more in the upcoming year than in 2010. Since the first quarter of 2010, I personally have heard quite a few hotel managers telling me that their business was doing better than it was in 2009. I also read a recent employment report, stating that hospitality companies are hiring more in the last couple months. However, a challenge remains as travelers are looking for “value” or “bargains” before they hit the road.

Here, I would like to claim that I am not trying to promote Chinese Zodiacs by any means. It is your personal decision of whether to believe in those Feng Shui masters or Chinese Zodiacs. My questions are: in your opinions, will 2011 be a better or a worse year for the hospitality and tourism industry? Why? What are some of the biggest challenges the industry will face in 2011? What are the strategies a hotel, a restaurant, an event planner, or a hospitality company in general can take to face those challenges?

 

Comments

  1. As of now, I cannot really tell if this year will be better or not. I've received a call a few days ago from my mom about not having to go to work because there's not work for her to do. She works in a clothing factory and she's the only one supporting my family. So she was really worried about paying for my textbooks and whatnot. So from that, I'm leaning more towards the year is getting worse. I think the industry will face financial challenges just because traveling in general is expensive as well as hiring new and more workers. Since hospitality businesses are labor intensive, it is definitely a management challenge for having the workers to have a fix scheduled hours/day in order to be consistent with forecasted revenues and monitoring payroll cost daily. Some strategies a manager can take would be using financial tools to utilize modern-day management and accurately predicting the economic fluctuations.

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