Comments by sodar
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Posted on June 3 at 8:01 a.m.
Krogers, you are absolutely correct about city and county gov'ts needing to stay away from businesses.
Also having done many Pro Forma's for opening a hotel any information the CVB gives a potential builder is always taken with a grain of salt. Banks require you to create a Pro Forma which details, Occupancy, Room Rate and RevPar (Revenue per Available Room) and marketing plans and how your numbers are going to allow you to make a profit and pay them back.
Not being familiar with the article gemccull refers to above, I would bet the Pro Forma came up short which required the city to have to put some skin into the deal to make it happen. I have seen this occur many times as someone in the city is absolutely sure it will work and it almost never does.
Right now hotel business is down around 20% to 30% across the country and if you had a marginal Pro Forma to begin with that can be a death sentence.
Does anyone know the name of the management company operating the hotel?
Posted on June 2 at 1:34 p.m.
I don't think Country Inns & Suites knows about this yet because you can still make a reservation on their web site for Natchez. Also per their franchise agreement the terms are for 15 years. If the chain dropped them the reservation system would drop them immediately. There is more to this story than is being told. Again, yes my guess is that they can not afford to pay the bill. Also what is the city doing paying a hotel company $20,000 a month? Surely that is not true.
http://www.countryinns.com/reservation/
There also is a 4.5% Royalty fee due each month.
Posted on June 2 at 10:41 a.m.
I have written several times about hotels here as that is my area of knowledge (I have managed hotels for over 25 years and currently have over 1,700 as clients). Anytime a hotel changes its name it has to do with Money. Either they did not have enough to pay the franchise fees or they did not have enough to keep the hotel up per franchise agreements. Most franchise agreements are written for 10 years or more.
Country Inns & Suites is not a top tier chain to begin with; however, neither is it a lower tier chain. It doesn't take much to keep the Country Inns & Suites flag, so if they are dropping it, there is more than most likely a money issue to arise shortly. With today's economy and competition, you have to be fairly desperate to drop a franchise's reservation system, which is what every hotel chain brings to the table.
Either they had to drop the name first in order to change or they probably have some serious money issues.
Posted on January 1 at 10:10 a.m.
For those of you who are wondering why the switch to digital it is all about money. Analog service takes up a very large spectrum of bandwidth for its signal. By switching to digital (which requires a much smaller spectrum) more radio frequencies become available for the cell phone providers.
As far as the cable companies dropping the signals it is all about money as well, they can get a signal from the satellite providers quite easily and then rebroadcast it on their land lines. The FCC REQUIRES them to broadcast certain local channels like Jackson and Baton Rouge so the cost is not a factor if they want to be in business.
The cable companies are inbetween a rock and a hard place as they would love to give everyone everything they wanted, but they have to pay a price for each channel they broadcast and keep their prices low, but still make a profit. If they are not making any money they will just close up shop and leave Natchez to figure it out on their own.
I have had Dish Network for over 10 years and love it. I do not "Rent" the receivers, instead I purchase them up front which is less than renting for 12 months. I do pay a monthly receiver fee and that is just the cost of being a couch potato.
Posted on November 14 at 11:55 a.m.
Trinity has always had championship teams from the 70's to now. Go Saints! Take the Hoot off!
Posted on October 1 at 7:37 a.m.
Under the "No Child Left Behind" Act, if a school is in a Needs Improvement or Failing status; then the governement is required to allow them to go to another school and pay for the transportation to get that child to a passing school. I take it the schools in question that parents do not want their children attending are in a passing status?
Posted on August 5 at 9:52 a.m.
If you are in the hotel business or tourism industry you should know you can get the exact occupancy numbers from a company call Smith Travel Resources which collects occupancy numbers from tens of thousands of hotels across the country. All major franchise chains require reporting to this company and most franchisors (Marriott, Holiday Inn's, IHG, Best Western, Choice Hotels, etc.) report the numbers for the individual hotels.
Posted on June 2 at 4:52 p.m.
EnKiKur and others who agree with him are correct, also remember the poem by Martin Niemöller:
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
If you don't speak up for those who are unaware you can only blame yourselves when they want to tax you.
You should eliminate the excessive spending before you try to cure it with an extra tax. If the CVB was doing their job correct in the first place there would be enough revenue from the existing tax to promote Natchez. I own a business with over 1,500 hotels as clients and none of those 1,500 like more taxes.
Why should the city do the hotels job of promoting the hotel's business. Does the city want to tax gas stations and promote those, how about taxing the hospital and promoting more people to come to it...no thats wrong in too many ways, but I think you get my point. People will go out of their way to come to Natchez if it fits in their budget and they have an enjoyable time, but don't count on them coming back if you stick them with an extra fee at checkout.
Posted on April 24 at 10:05 a.m.
If any of you were around back in the late 70's when they first put up all of those big metal poles through out the town, you will remember how they had to go back and paint them green from the outcry and then later promised that all the power lines would eventually be buried underground. Sounds like they need to complete this promise and leave the trees alone.
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Posted on August 18 at 10:01 a.m.
The places I have seen the best enforcement of littering is where they have a higher fine listed as well as a number to call on the sign to report a violator. People think twice about littering if they know they can easily be reported.
On County vehicles damaged