The tourism industry is already in trouble, coming out of COVID. I work in convention hotels. They're incredibly understaffed. The norm now, even in luxury hotels, is that you have to "opt in" to housekeeping services and you often don't get it anyway.

I've taken to bringing my "Vegas Kit," which contains a collapsible water boiler, a plastic Aeropresse press pot, a grinder that sleeves in the press pot, and coffee beans. Otherwise I wouldn't have coffee after the first morning.

Room Service barely exists in many such places. A resort that has 5 restaurants usually only has two or three open, unless the place is nearly full. These are swanky joints. JW Marriott, Hyatt Regency, Gaylord, Omni, Hilton; the prestige brands.

I have photos of the filthy carpeting in the guest room areas of Disney properties. They're not spending any money on maintenance. There's a freight door at the Dolphin that has an inspection sticker on it from December 2023, marked "Failed." It's not fixed, as of yesterday.

Every time there's a downturn, corporate ownership tries to go as far into the rebound as possible, as understaffed and unmaintained as possible. It's very profitable to operate with three people when they used to have five; until stuff just breaks and guests stop showing up.

And that's what we're going to see now.

I already know of international corporations headquartered in the US that are having their global meetings outside the US, because their foreign executives won't come here. This is going to intensify dramatically. And that's where the big hotel chains make their bread and butter.

This gonna be ugly.