Last month, I teamed up with CoStar's Emmy Hise for a podcast where we talked about the things we both think hoteliers have to be thankful for heading into the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.
Now obviously, that holiday has come and gone — and as someone with the responsibility of hosting family during that stretch, maybe I'm thankful for that — but I do think there's one thing both Emmy and I brought to the table independently that might be worth just a little bit more of a discussion.
We both noted hoteliers should be appreciative of the fact that the election season had passed. Now you can view that flippantly and say that we're all glad to see the end of political ads and random spam text messages and emails about one candidate or another, but I do think that there's another reason people in the hotel industry should be glad the dust has settled: clarity.
For basically all of 2024, the hotel industry and society in general has had to reckon with the realistic possibility of two starkly different political futures. Now, it's obvious that most people were hoping for one of those or another than roughly half were bound to be disappointed one way or another, but what we all have to appreciate is the branching possible timelines we had to plan for have pared down significantly.
I'm not so naive to think one settled presidential election gives our society absolute certainty of the trajectory for the future, but I have to imagine it's much easier to plan now for a certain regulatory and political outlook than it would've been three to six months ago.
And beyond that, there were significant concerns within the hotel industry of massive disruptions following the election due to civil unrest, and that never materialized. The elections themselves had their own level of travel disruption, but that's nothing out of the ordinary.
So as we go into the holiday season to end the year and start to reorient ourselves towards 2025, lets be thankful for the little bit more knowledge we have now than just a few weeks ago.
Let me know what you think on LinkedIn or via email.
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