Meeting for its annual Marketing Outlook Forum in Las Vegas in late October, one couldn’t help but notice a bit of spring returning to the step of the tourism industry, as even attendance numbers at the United States Travel Association’s (USTA) event came in healthy at more than 500-strong.
"We’re definitely coming out of this recession," said Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. "We have definitely met the challenge of the Great Recession, and the result will be that all of our brands will be stronger."
While the last couple of years were tough for the meetings industry—convention attendance fell 30 percent from the high-water mark set in 2007, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers Director Robert Canton—the average daily rate (ADR) at hotels is headed in an upward direction.
In fact, according to Adam Sacks, founder and managing director of consultancy Tourism Economics, U.S. hotels have sold more rooms in the four months before the Forum than at any time in history, and Steve Hood, executive vice president of research at Smith Travel Research, told attendees that ADR is up $6 and climbing during the same time period.
Of course, the positive trends were tempered by a reminder of just how bad the last downturn was.
"We lost $70 billion of the value of the [tourism] industry in 2009," said Helen Marano, director of the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries for the Department of Commerce.