The Kansas City Post asks: "Show me exactly which conventions Kansas City is losing due to lack of hotel space. Name them. Show us letters of intent guaranteeing a multi-year commitment from tangible groups if we build this hotel."
Some great analysis while the Star is busy cheerleading the project.
Some great analysis while the Star is busy cheerleading the project.
The City of Kansas City IS in the hotel business. We've bailed out the Marriott for years.
ReplyDeleteWe have the hotel rooms; All the hotels have to do is work together to provide one good rate and work together regarding shuttles. Other cities do it very successfully. It could take one phone call to get one rate over 2 or 3 or 4 hotels and shuttles provided. Right now convention planners have to make hundred phone calls - try to strike multiple deals - when it could be 1 phone call and a set room rate depending on the size of the convention.
Since we're already in the hotel business - why don't we think about being good hoteliers and good stewards of the public dime.
Name one? Easy, the Skills USA convention going on right now that has been in Kansas City for years but this is the last year because it uses up all the available hotel space and needs more.
ReplyDeleteOkay so let's do a cost analysis. One convention versus billions over the course of years for an empty hotel.
ReplyDeleteSt. Louis had this same idea and their hotel closed
Anon 5:47 - there are many more conventions and any intelligent person can create a long list. Sorry. And we'er not talking billions here. Sorry. And who want's to go to a shithole like STL anyway. Been to their downtown lately. Besides the arch, the place is one step above shite! Piss poor arena, piss poor dome, and a bunch of nothing else.
ReplyDeleteHeaven forbid if it actually worked here, thny you would complain about the long lines at the P&L!
why is it that the only news that we get from the city council is always about big cash giveaways to totally ridiculous projects where it seems that they are going to a tremendous amount of work and inventing all sorts of new ways to give away money?
ReplyDeletewhy do we not hear anything about fixing the streets, sewers, police, etc...
just for once i would like to hear how they put their noses to the grindstone and got k.c. a good deal on anything.
if you didn't know the truth, then you'd could look at all this crap they are pulling and all the money they are giving away and assume that we had lost a war or something and the victor has put in place a whole crew of imbeciles to wreck the city financially. it's working like a charm. they are doing a great job of totally destroying us.
why is this happening?
why do they spend all their time doing this stuff?
why are they not trying to be fiscally conservative?
why are they listening to a bunch of political hacks and stooges who just want more money?
why are all the city offices seemingly inbred and why are there no calls to arrest them for fraud and mismanagement?
why do they have all these supposed experts on governing and finances working for the city and then go out and spend ridiculous amounts of money on consultants?
why do they hire a consultant every time they have an idea to do something.
i would love to see every city council member and all the heads of departments investigated by the FBI so we would have an idea of who they are really working for and how much money and gifts they are receiving from people that do business with the city.
it's gone way beyond being totally ridiculous. it is now at the point of you wouldn't believe it if you watched it with your own eyes.
there is no way any of this stuff could be going on without someone committing a crime. no way.
who do they think they are?
and why are they not putting the city's interest first?
The City of Kansas City has not decided what it wants to be. For example, while we were capturing the national record for columnless convention floor space (thinking that would capture conventions), Indianapolis was implementing a deliberate plan to become the nation's amature sports capital.
ReplyDeleteI watched this start in 1987 or 1988 when they took the NCAA offices. That same year the Presbyterian USA Chruch refused to move its headquarters here because of the desparate treatment of minority communities. They moved to Louisville instead. That should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn't.
A new hotel will do nothing to improve the City's image. I'm for spending $500,000 to study what's wrong with our image or the impression the City gives since we can't get significant buiness relocations, visitors or conventioneers. In fact, we can't even get reasonable population growth!
We can't compete until this City is totally rearranged in its priorities. The needs of the many outway the needs of the few!
well, Wal-Mart comes to mind.
ReplyDeletePlus I hear The Mark Forsythe Ass Kissing Convention is looking for a new home, too.
Whats wrong with KC is substance, not image. A broken down, high crime city that can't be fixed with more conventions. Get out of the convention business. Every city in the US keeps throwing more money at a money losing proposition. Ask the question - why are we in the convention business? Then have an honest evaluation, not some Chamber of Commerce bullshit about "economic activity".
ReplyDelete