Werner, some very nice articles.
I think that Marriott would welcome Disney's presence in Hawaii as they bring a good cache along with them and this can only help enhance the immediate area. Of course it takes big bucks ( and some behind the scenes politicing ) to get something like this off the ground. The unfortunate thing for both Disney and Marriott is the rancid economy and drying up of financing for these sort of projects. But like anything in life, timing is everything, and at the moment, the time ain't right. The good news is that big companies can most usually weather out bad times and it comes down to how slowly/quickly this economic maelstorm abates.
Actually your articles raise an interesting point regarding cruise lines which are fiercely competitive and have huge start up costs in those expensive ships alonog with some razor thin profit lines. In this economy, I'd expect the (fuel-cost sensitive ) cruise lines to fare far worse than traditional hotelilers or integrated destination companies such as the travel side of Disney which dabbles in timeshare while making their money from theme parks and associated accomodations and Marriott which works from the accomodation and timeshare side of the game. I'd guess that the fixed costs of the former are less controllable than what Marriott and Disney deal with. These are some very interesting times in terms of discretionary travel decisions/choices. I think that Marriott and Disney are better positioned to weather out the storm than the cruise companies who can dock their ship but do little else.
Once again, nice articles which are thought provoking.
Barry
