Washington Post: Efforts to Curb Corporate Excess Could Add to Travel Sector's Pain

[marmar]

Travel Industry: This Is No Time to Check Out
Efforts to Curb Corporate Excess Could Add to Sector's Pain

By Sholnn Freeman and Michael S. Rosenwald
Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, February 13, 2009; Page D01


Washington's attacks on corporate excess -- the private jets and trips to Vegas -- are prompting a backlash from the travel industry.

Hotel chains, jet makers and corporate travel managers say they are fearful that efforts to curb excesses by firms receiving government aid will only add more pain to an industry hit hard by the economic downturn.

"We've got to get away from the symbolism of corporate fat cats smoking a big cigar on a golf course and instead think about the symbolism of people meeting and thinking together and creating ideas and building their cultures," Marriott chief financial officer Arne Sorenson said yesterday in a conference call to discuss the company's weak earnings report.

President Obama has repeatedly urged Wall Street executives to show restraint if they expect government help. "You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime, " Obama said at a town meeting this week in Elkhart, Ind.

Those comments provoke a sharp response from the mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar B. Goodman, who said Obama's comments "reinforced the stereotype" that meetings in the city were wasteful. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021203630.html

[sandnsea]

1. Or they could go somewhere cheaper

like the Oregon Coast and add to the economy of small towns.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Las Vegas is actually a great place to hold meetings, trade shows and conventions

They know how to do it well, costs are reasonable, lots of lodging options, people are willing to go there, highly scalable. Over all its one of the more cost effective places to go.

Small town places really can not compete in terms of cost and effectiveness

[sandnsea]

5. If you need extravagance

If you want to get work done at a reasonable cost, no, Las Vegas is not cost effective. Neither is Carmel or the Ritz Half Moon Bay or any of the other outlandish places these people think they need to go for their "business" trips.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. Having organized several professional conferences it does not have to be extravagant

Vegas gives you options as the organizer and the attendee, choices that many other places such as the Oregon coast do not have, and is normally at a lower cost as well.

[jkshaw]

2. I don't buy this, read about it last week,

and think it's Las Vegas getting panicky. The excess of the "fat cats" has been going on for a long time. They're just going to have to tone it down.

[Stephanie]

7. I work for a large company that just banned all corporate travel

In my group alone we got refunds on many thousands in tickets we'd already purchased. Company wide, I bet it adds up to millions. These are not junkets, this is a world wide company where executives travel to oversee operations and meet with clients. Now it will all be done by teleconference. The airlines are really going to hurt from this.

[Donnachaidh]

3. cry me a river

These places didn't raise a stink when the airlines started to feed off each other, putting thousands out of work. Not a peep when gas prices went up, and people had to pay more to get to their vacation vistas.

WHEN do they start drooling and mewling? When the big money losses are looming, and the fat cats are forced to curtail the drunken parties at their casinos.

F*CK them.

[Zomby Woof]

6. Typical self-justifying corporate bullshit

They are so full of their self-importance, that they describe their excess and narcissism as "building a culture". :hurts:

Let 'em "be creative" (read: rip off others' ideas and snort coke while smearing Crisco up each other's asscracks and jacking off to Fox News) in the boardroom at home.

[babylonsister]

8. Maybe the travel industry needs to retool to reflect the majority

in this country, and that would NOT be the corporate fat cats. Then again, the majority are the ones being laid off.

[icnorth]

9. "...efforts to curb excesses by firms receiving government aid will only add more pain"

Listen up you assholes 3.6 million people in the past year are now unemployed because of your "excesses" and there is a backlash coming. Starting with Reagan you lobbied and bribed your way into the corridors of political power. You bought and paid for economic policy designed to benefit the strongest and wealthiest corporations; you had monopoly laws gutted and manipulated your way around campaign financing regulations.

Now we see the results. corporate bungling has all but destroyed investor confidence in financial markets. Wachovia, Lehman Bros., Fanny Mae,Bernie Madoff, the framework to protect investor capital and prevent fraud has been shredded. In concert the oil barons and speculators pushed the price of gasoline beyond many consumers capacity to pay. Now we see the Captains of Industry exposed as greedy, incompetent bungling fools with not a small number of crooks embedded in the mix.

According to the Associated Press Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corp. of America was appointed to the USDA Peanut Standards board in July 2005 and reappointed for a second term that runs until 2011. This is the president of a company linked to a nationwide salmonella outbreak who serves on an advisory board that sets quality standards of peanuts. Stewart Parnell, a quality standards adviser who ordered tainted product shipped from his factory even after the confirmation of salmonella bacteria. Nine deaths and six hundred cases of poisoning; so much for self regulation and social corporate responsibility.

You wonder why the average citizen is pissed? Maybe they want to have some say about their money, their children and grandchildren's money; that it isn't going to buy flying water beds with wings, million dollar office renovations, $1,400.00 wastebaskets and posh surroundings for elite corporate circle jerks. Hell yeah, we want government watchdogs and shareholder oversight. And we want regulations with very sharp teeth that will bite miscreant executives in the ass.

Rant off

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. Air travel for business is a tax write off for the corporations

and a hand out to the airlines.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

12. Its considered a cost of doing business. The hard part is how to determine reasonable vs boondoggle

[4 t 4]

13. Ohhhh how sad for all those rich fucks

bite us all you out of touch fuckers. Sorry for the language it couldn't be helped, I am so angry

[BlooInBloo]

14. Meh. A variant on NIMBY-ism.