That's exactly how Adam Sacks began a talk recently to a group of destination marketing executives (DMO). He is the founder and President of Tourism Economics and gave those of us in attendance an outlook on the U.S. economy and lodging, which prompted as many questions as it answered.

He noted that the last seven years have been unusually good for our national lodging industry as room demand has outpaced real GDP growth. For Minneapolis, we bottomed out in 2009 with an occupancy of 59%, with steady increases in nearly every year since. This period of growth has defied previous historical trends and has made predictions more difficult to make. Sacks and other industry prognosticators are predicting a slowing in the rate of growth with no current forecast of negative growth. Sacks indicated that the increase in room demand would slow to just under 2% and lag our GDP growth.

“Uncertainty” was the watchword from Sacks and he categorized the uncertainty under the umbrella of sentiment toward the United States. Among the sources of uncertainty he noted are:

• Extreme nationalism advocated by the current administration
• A strained U.S. - Mexico relationship
• Discussion of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
• The travel ban and associated extreme vetting of certain foreign nationals
• Immigration status of some in the United States and potential enforcement actions

Sacks also mentioned an idea reportedly being discussed which would require some foreign nationals to divulge their social media passwords as a condition of entry to the United States.

On the international travel front, Sacks expects a decline in international travel to the U.S. Minneapolis has a large repertoire of international flights, but we don't stand to be as impacted as cities such as Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. These cities would be among most vulnerable should this prediction come to fruition.

So in his ten minutes, Adam Sacks certainly did get our attention. For our Meet Minneapolis partners and stakeholders, we will continue to aggregate information from industry resources such as Tourism Economics with our own data, curated by Kevin Hanstad, in order to provide the valuable market intelligence you've come to expect from us. That means even when the news is not good, we will share it with our stakeholders. Thanks for your support.

That's exactly how Adam Sacks began a talk recently to a group of destination marketing executives (DMO). He is the founder and President of Tourism Economics and gave those of us in attendance an outlook on the U.S. economy and lodging, which prompted as many questions as it answered.

He noted that the last seven years have been unusually good for our national lodging industry as room demand has outpaced real GDP growth. For Minneapolis, we bottomed out in 2009 with an occupancy of 59%, with steady increases in nearly every year since. This period of growth has defied previous historical trends and has made predictions more difficult to make. Sacks and other industry prognosticators are predicting a slowing in the rate of growth with no current forecast of negative growth. Sacks indicated that the increase in room demand would slow to just under 2% and lag our GDP growth.

“Uncertainty” was the watchword from Sacks and he categorized the uncertainty under the umbrella of sentiment toward the United States. Among the sources of uncertainty he noted are:

• Extreme nationalism advocated by the current administration
• A strained U.S. - Mexico relationship
• Discussion of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
• The travel ban and associated extreme vetting of certain foreign nationals
• Immigration status of some in the United States and potential enforcement actions

Sacks also mentioned an idea reportedly being discussed which would require some foreign nationals to divulge their social media passwords as a condition of entry to the United States.

On the international travel front, Sacks expects a decline in international travel to the U.S. Minneapolis has a large repertoire of international flights, but we don't stand to be as impacted as cities such as Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. These cities would be among most vulnerable should this prediction come to fruition.

So in his ten minutes, Adam Sacks certainly did get our attention. For our Meet Minneapolis partners and stakeholders, we will continue to aggregate information from industry resources such as Tourism Economics with our own data, curated by Kevin Hanstad, in order to provide the valuable market intelligence you've come to expect from us. That means even when the news is not good, we will share it with our stakeholders. Thanks for your support.