GRID wrote:I don't see hotels going away. I travel a lot and use hotels, airbnb, vrbo etc. It really depends on the city and what I'm trying to do while traveling. One of the biggest problems with airbnbs is logistics. Most business travelers don't book out months in advance and need flexibility when plans changes, flights changes etc. They also tend to require more full service amenities. Airbnb and vrbo is already a huge part of most major cities and they are still building huge new hotels in the cities with the most active airbnbs.
I mean if cities like Denver, Charlotte, Austin, Nashville etc can have all these high end hotel flags in modern skyscrapers then why not KC? (and with all their high rise residential towers, they are going to have a lot more airbnb competition than KC hotels do).
What is hurting KC is there is very little corporate presence downtown. Hell, there is very little corporate presence in all of metro KC anymore. While most jobs are in suburban office parks, KC is just not a HQ town anymore so you just dn't have big companies in KC wining and dining clients, bringing in executives for meetings, holding conventions etc. Do to mergers etc and nobody ever choosing KC as a HQ, KC has become a regional office park town. That hurts. Also the fact that KC's stadiums are nowhere near downtown etc. But places like Nashville, Denver, Charlotte even cities like Milwaukee, Baltimore, Cincy, Pittsburgh etc have built large office towers for hometown HQs in the past few years. KC has only lost HQs to the suburbs over the last ten years.
But it really seems like KC is really close to being able to support one or two more large upscale hotels.
Hotels definitely won't be going away. Airbnb is great if you're a lone wolf on a business trip or on vacation and need a place to stay. Hotels are more attractive for corporate travel for the blocks of rooms and the fact they are clean, consistent and larger employers get a group rate. Less adventurous people like having a pool, gym, a downstairs bar or restaurant when they are in an unfamiliar city.
KC's HQs have had a lot of ups and downs. The only company that seems to be growing and doing well is Cerner. I think a case could be made for Garmin as well as they seem to be doing well and coincidently they have both heavily invested into office parks in the suburbs, but the others?
Sprint - their future is unknown
Hallmark - been on the decline for years
H&R Block - ?
Applebees - left town
Russell Stover - ?
AMC - ?
American Century - ?
DST - Recently acquired by an out of town corp.
Lockton - ?
I may be wrong, but outside of the three currently downtown, I don't see a single one of those moving to an office tower downtown for whatever reason.