Travel

A mobile society? Maybe not so much.

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The United States has long been known as one of the most mobile societies on earth. Throughout the history of our nation, Americans have seemingly always had a major collective case of wanderlust.

This was especially true during World War II when hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women found themselves posted to places far away from home. Getting a taste of unfamiliar and interesting locations — so different from what they knew growing up — many people elected not to return home from the war.

My father, who was stationed in Alaska during World War II and was mustered out of the Army Air Corps in San Francisco/Oakland, tells of acquaintences who opted to take a small cash payout and stayed in California, rather than accept free transport back to their homes in New York, Pittsburgh, rural Alabama or wherever.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the population growth of the Mountain and Pacific States plus plentiful manufacturing jobs throughout the Midwest sparked dramatic population migrations from South to North and from East to West. Families took annual vacation road trips of 1,000 miles or more, fueled by cheap gasoline and the brand-new Interstate highway system.

Today, things look much different. According to a just-released Rasmussen poll, 90% of respondents report that they have lived in the same state for at least the past five years. And nearly three-fourths report that they’ve lived in the same state for more than 20 years.

This news comes hard on the heels of the U.S. Census Department reporting that only ~35 million people changed where they lived from March 2007 to March 2008. The Census Bureau noted that this was the lowest number recorded since 1962 — when the United States had 120 million fewer people.

More recent stats for the comparable 2008-09 period aren’t yet available, but I suspect the numbers have declined even further. If so, it will represent a big change in one of America’s most unique and defining aspects — its mobility. I wonder … is another one of America’s trademark characteristics now becoming more a myth than reality?

Conference Centers to the Fore

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What a difference a few months make. “Way back” in 2008, high-end resort properties in exotic locations were doing a healthy business hosting corporate events. Large corporations have long been a core resort customer segment that has delivered volume business year after year – major contributors to the bottom line even as resorts have also attracted their share of weddings and other smaller events.

The economic meltdown has now brought hugely negative publicity to corporate events held at resorts, the result of news reports that federal government bailout money has gone to pay for them. These events have been described by politicians and the press as “outrageous,” “excessive,” “junkets” and “boondoggles” – places where well-heeled business types get to wine and dine and cavort in the sun on the taxpayer’s dollar.

Even the AFL-CIO union hasn’t been immune to the criticism, coming under fire for holding its annual convention at the exclusive Fontainbleau Hilton resort property in Miami Beach.

While one can certainly fault these companies and organizations for being politically tone-deaf, the fact is that business does get carried out at these events. Even in today’s electronic age, it is still important to organize face-to-face get-togethers on a regular basis.

Enter the Conference Center. This corner of the hospitality industry, long relegated to backwater status, has consistently labored under the image of being far less impressive and exciting than the resort segment. Now, sensing an opening, conference centers are making their move. They’re promoting themselves as a preferred location for serious business events – far away from tourist attractions or white sand beaches, extreme recreation or other distractions (the ubiquitous golf being the exception).

Properties like the Marriott Aspen Wye Conference Center in Maryland and the Wyndham Princeton Forrestal Conference Center in New Jersey are stepping up promotion, as is the International Association of Conference Centers. The basic message is that conference center properties are the places where productive meetings take place, free of distractions. “Serious-minded meetings are in … posh or over-the-top venues are out” is the order of the day.

Plus, right now it just sounds a lot better from a PR standpoint if you can report that your corporate event is being held in a location five miles from Trenton, New Jersey.

Skyscraper Graveyard

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apartment-buildingBook TowerOn a trip to Detroit a few days ago, my family and I stayed downtown in one of the city’s newly renovated grande dame hotels. The 1920s-era Fort Shelby Hotel, now part of the Doubletree chain, reopened last December after being closed for more than 25 years. It’s a jewel of a property stuck in the middle of one of the most depressed cities in America. Reportedly, a whopping $80 million was spent on its renovation.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Just up the street is the even more palatial Westin Book-Cadillac, which was the world’s largest hotel when it first opened in 1924. It, too, stood vacant starting in the early 1980s, miraculously avoiding the wrecking ball before being rescued in a $200 million+ renovation and reopening this past October.

So what will help fill the rooms of these showcase hotel properties? If a flood of reservations actually materializes, it will be for the myriad lawyers, accountants and government officials descending on the city to pick apart General Motors and Chrysler Corporation.

The city of Detroit can’t seem to catch a break. First, there’s the real estate crisis that has seen property values plunge even faster than the national average. Today, the city’s median home sales price is below $10,000, which has to be the record low for a major U.S. city.

Next up, the spectacle of dilapidated infrastructure, a dysfunctional school system plus governmental corruption, nepotism and favoritism run amok – all culminating in Detroit’s mayor being sent to prison.

Now comes the implosion of Detroit’s auto industry that has sparked the nation’s renewed attention on the crumbling city, including human-interest television reporting and lurid photo essays like the one just published in Time magazine.

Sadly, this is Detroit. Riding the People Mover, the 2.5-mile monorail system that loops the perimeter of downtown, one can peer into the second-story levels of building after vacant building. It’s truly a metaphor for the entire city … and a peepshow for the rest of the nation.

Is there a natural bottom? The investors in Detroit’s old hotels seem to think so. But you have to wonder, would those investors have moved forward with these initiatives knowing what they know today?

It was photographer and social commentator Camilo Jose Vergara who suggested more than ten years ago that the empty skyscrapers of downtown Detroit be preserved in their current state as a memorial and monument to a vanishing industrial age. Of course, the city government leaders were horrified at the idea and objected loudly. But really, what other use could they possibly come up with for these relics – silent and stark reminders that a city once the nation’s fifth largest has shrunk in under 50 years to less than half its former size.