The climate for the hotel industry is less than hospitable, and insiders are putting part of the blame on Washingtons criticism of business travel. The industry is now fighting back by stepping up its dialogue on Capitol Hill.
“We want to make sure they understand the other side of their vilification of the meetings business, said Arne Sorenson, chief financial officer of Marriott International
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“The other side really is that there are hundreds of thousands of people employed in these hotels who make great careers, and their lives depend on this business continuing to occur.
Sorenson says Marriott executives have met with President Barack Obama and members of Congress to plead their case and prove that business actually gets conducted at off-site business meetings.
“These meetings are not boondoggles of fat cats drinking Cristal and doing nothing significant, added Sorenson. They are meetings of clients or investors, where its important they come together and talk about the strategies for the next year, and they can look each other in the eye and assess how the teams are doing.
Sorenson says inroads are being made, noting the anti-business-travel rhetoric in Washington has been toned down.
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