Meeting Arizona

I laughed when I read the following headline:

Arizona Hotels Thriving Despite Boycotts Over Immigration Law

Where do you suppose all those protesters stayed when they were in Arizona?  On the streets?

On a similar note, I've been doing all that I could to help boost their economy.  Last year I did not go to Arizona.  This year I spent a week there in May, I was there last week and I will spend a week there in August.  I spent on hotel, rental car, meals and fuel.  All of the travel was associated with business meetings so there was also rental on the meeting facility and other associated expenses.  I don't meet by myself, so there were others doing the same thing.

I wonder if maybe the whole Immigration Uproar is just a marketing ploy to raise the country's awareness of Arizona!

Break

I've been enjoying a short break from travel for a couple of weeks now.  It has taken some readjustment!

There have been plenty of things to keep me busy though.  I have a presentation to a group of cattlemen next week that I've been preparing for as well as a convention/trade show where I will have a booth -- both in Tucson, Arizona.  The following week I will be doing a half-day training session for a large ranch in Central Texas.  They sell genetics in various forms and employ several full-time salesmen.  Their manager asked me to come do a Sales Training seminar for them.  I am excited about it but, it has taken a lot of preparation because that is not the type of training that I normally do other than for my own staff.  This will be a more formal type of program.

You never know what life will throw your way!  The Sales Training request came "out-of-the-blue".  The thing most interesting about it to me is that lately I believe God has been impressing on me that I need to spend time passing on what I have learned to others.  The timing of the request was, shall we say, attention getting!

Airlines Scheme to Offset Fuel Prices

Some airlines are responding to the higher fuel costs in ways that make no sense to me. I suspect they know exactly the cost of every flight they conduct. The key is to maximize occupancy while maintaining a profitable flight. Fill the seats.

The newest strategy by United is likely to create empty seats. Requiring minimum stays will cause business travelers to purchase tickets in pairs (2 round trip tickets) and then using the first half of one ticket heading to their destination and the first half of the second ticket returning. That means unoccupied seats unless filled with standby passengers. With the discounts they are considering for "required minimum stays" it will often make sense to the business traveler to use this method to circumvent that requirement. It may require using two different airlines to accomplish, but it is doable.

Why not just price the seats at a profitable level based on anticipated usage and be done with it? The airlines have huge databases that provide very reliable traffic flow and seat occupancy statistics. Use them. Don't play games. Instead, the result is likely to be a shift to alternative means of transportation. The private aviation industry may gain more charters.