Post-Election Predictions: What the Hospitality Industry Can Expect in 2017 (Podcast & Transcript)

Like other industries, the hospitality industry is reacting to the surprise victory of President Donald Trump. In this podcast, real estate lawyers David Adams and Dan Weede discuss the impact of the election on the commercial real estate market - in particular, the hospitality industry. They share their observations and predictions on short- and long-term trends, millennials and social media, the share economy, minimum wage, occupancy rates, and financing of large hospitality projects.

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TRANSCRIPT

David: Welcome and thank you and our listeners and welcome to the first in our series on the national and commercial estate market. My name is David Adams and today I'm talking with Dan Weede - a guy who needs no introduction in the regional hospitality industry. He is the co-founder and former president of the Atlanta Hospitality Alliance, an approximately 300-member, Atlanta-based, professional development and networking group that meets quarterly to socialize and discuss hospitality industry trends and developments. I thought it very fitting to ask him about what he sees in hospitality industry in 2017.

Dan: Thank you Dan.

David: Since the election, the overall business sentiment in the U.S. appears to have changed for the better in a positive sense. How do you think this will impact the hotel industry and broader hospitality real estate market?

Dan: That's a great question and inauguration day is still two weeks away. So, by definition, we're still talking about perceptions and speculations, but I think it's very positive. I think that if you were to ask most people going into the election what would happen with President Trump, they would have thought that it was going to have an adverse reaction on the economy and it's clearly not. So that's been a surprise. It's been a good short-term bump. But, I'm not convinced that it's going to have a longer-term effect on the industry other than some of the trends and headwinds and tailwinds we're facing right now, that we're going to talk about in a little bit, I think those will continue to play out - and I think it's going to be less about the short-term balance and speculations and it's going to be more policy-driven over the next four years.

David: I think that's a great introduction and what I like to do is look at overall industry trends. As someone who is involved in the commercial real estate market and not the sub-market, the hospitality aspect of the commercial real estate market, it appears to me that there are three particular trends that are impacting the financing of projects, and so I'd really like to get your thoughts on those. One that keeps popping up over and over again - and I recently saw this on a U.S. census department release - is that millennials now make up the largest cohort in a working population. It's hard to say millennials without mentioning social media but since millennials with their addiction to social media are now again the largest group in...