The organizers of the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show need to consider major changes to this once but no longer relevant event. If they don’t, the Show is doomed for extinction, perhaps soon. The recently concluded edition of the Show, which is held each November at the Javits Center, New York City’s poor excuse for a convention venue, was considerably smaller than in recent years, was poorly attended and generally failed to generate much enthusiasm. Perhaps you can blame the state of the economy, but truth is the Show has been on a downward spiral for a number of years.
I spoke to scores of exhibitors and attendees and nearly everyone complained about the lack of traffic in the aisles. The educational sessions delivered good content, but were mostly poorly attended. The only highlights of the week came during the meetings of the AH&LA, and even that group has its own, but unrelated problems.
Show management needs to get creative in its approaches to building exhibitor interest and industry attendance, especially by hotel owners and operators. Here’s one idea: Create a hotel franchise and management company pavilion, similar to the existing Technology Innovation Center, to allow brands and managers to meet with owners and developers to discuss new projects and deals. The exhibit space in the pavilion needs to be inexpensive enough to attract all the major, and many of the smaller, brand and management companies.
Whether it’s this idea or something else, the key to reviving the show is to get more attendees in the door. Do that, and everything else falls into place.
Big Troubles For the New York Hotel Show
One Response to “Big Troubles For the New York Hotel Show”
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I received a number of verbal and written response to this blog entry, which also appeared in our bi-weekly eReport. I did receive one negative written response. It was from an exhibitor at the Show, Phillip Kopp of Energy Eye. Here is his message to me:
Unfortunately it has taken me some time to get back to reading your eReport as I have been traveling ever since IHMRS. I was very disappointed to read your editorial and in fact could not disagree more. Our company has been attending the show since 2005. Although the show was much smaller than in previous years (perhaps roughly half the size) I cannot honestly say that our booth was less attended. We do not cater to restaurants, which admittedly was the bulk of Sunday traffic, I am happy to say that on Monday we gave over 100 presentations to qualified attendees. With three of us in the booth and 6 hours of prime show time, that is 5 presentations per representative per hour, or 1 every 12 minutes. That was nearly non-stop talking for the entire day. We spoke to small and large properties alike. As it has always been a regional show, it was no different than in previous years to expect that the majority of attendees would be from the Eastern seaboard.
On top of that, we contacted several key, high level executives at the show whom represented national and international level chains. Sure, there were not as many people from Mexico and other foreign countries and maybe the floor was not as big, but the attendance level was sufficient enough and high enough quality for us to justify the expenses of going there. Hands down, we will be there again and again. While the trade fair industry is changing to smaller, one on one type of events, I believe that there is still sufficient justification to bring out the props and attend the good old standard show floors. After all, the majority of business goes on outside the show floor doors (and perhaps after hours), but there is still a need and a tradition for companies to show their customers that they care about them, that they are around and willing to invest in a fabric of the industry. Without the shows to fund them, there would be far fewer seminars, conferences and panels for which the industry to learn and communicate, develop, grow and share their experiences. It would be a sad sight to see companies and attendees to take the same attitude that you have portrayed and I believe it is much a turn for the worst. Please help support the industry by making sure that companies and attendees continue to find enthusiasm in the industry. If a company is having a poor year, not selling or bad show traffic… it probably has a lot more to do with the company than it does with the market…
Phillip M Kopp
Chief Operating Officer
Energy Eye Inc