Resorts may see more business from corporate America this year

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Resort owners’ long nightmare known as the ‘AIG effect’ may start to end soon, according to a veteran hospitality analyst who predicts that U.S. companies will hold meetings -- at least a few of them -- at nice hotels again this year.

Upscale hotels that used to depend on group business from corporations holding off-site strategy sessions or rewarding top-performing employees with trips have been hammered by the recession. Companies canceled outings to plush resorts in part because top brass didn’t want to look like Marie Antoinette, basking in luxury while legions of others lost their jobs.

When executives of insurance giant AIG spent $443,000 at the St. Regis Resort in Dana Point just days after the company accepted an $85-billion federal bailout in late 2008, reports of the junket quickly dominated the news and became emblematic of the excesses that many believed had brought down the economy. Other companies took heed and stayed home.

Some hospitality industry experts think they’ll be coming back this year. Consultant David M. Brudney of Carlsbad predicts big business meetings will make a moderate comeback in 2010 before flowering again in two or three years.

‘You have to wonder,’ he said, ‘how much pent-up demand there has to be after 18 months or more of canceled meetings, incentive trips and those all-important rewards for so many worthy qualifiers. Surely, corporate America must realize by now how valuable those gatherings are for face-to-face, human interaction, communication, continuing education, morale building and recognition.’

-- Roger Vincent