It may seem a little strange that, only 6 days from Christmas, I can't tell you if my sales are going to be good or bad. But that's the way it is, these days. People really are waiting until the last minute -- or so I hope, because up until today they haven't been doing much.
Being in downtown, I get a bunch of business from out-of-towners during this last week. The story in the Bulletin today, about tourism bookings, was interesting. It seemed to me, if you read between the lines and the relatively optimistic headline, that bookings are down, down, down.
Let me tell you a secret. Don't you come back an hit me with it, O.K? Whenever a merchant says, "We're doing about what we expected," those are weasel words. In other words, we expected business to suck and suck it does.
I peered into the Oxford Inn, last night, and it appears there are at least a few days from opening. Thus, mostly, missing the Holidays. At least they'll have the six months from January until June for a 'slow' opening. Amazing how often this happens. I suspect no matter how much planning goes on, that circumstances and regulations hold them up until they miss the busy season.
Anyway, I probably won't really know how I did this season until January 1, 2010.
So far, we're doing about what we expected....Heh.
(Actually, we're up about 10% so far, but that could easily be wiped out by a couple of slow days....so, we're just waiting and seeing...)
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What I get from the story is that the higher end places (those with higher then average costs and accomendations, think 3 star and up) are doing ok (about the same as last year, maybe a little better). While the lower cost (1 and 2 star), places are off considerably.
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