PHOENIX, AZ— When the meat and potatoes portion of the Eighth Annual Lodging Conference gets under way here this morning, it will remain to be seen whether the opening day’s Power Panel will play to a substantial number of the hotel-investment arena’s power players. To be sure, The Conference Bureau’s Harry Javer— an organizer of the yearly industry conclave along with Lodging Unlimited’s Morris Lasky— maintained he is “pleasantly surprised” by the total registration of something over 900 for this year’s gathering, pointing out that number would easily surpass the turnout for this past Januarys (delayed) conference. However, several attendees the Oct. 1 evening were privately wondering whether the crowd at this year’s event would be sufficient to “jump start” the opening morning’s scheduled line-up of ownership forums and think tanks focusing on equity players, property brokerage, banks and credit corporations, Wall Street, and bridge and mezzanine financing as well as timeshare and fractional financing. As it was noted, a big part of this conference has long been the attendee interaction, so the question this year is whether the “numbers” will adversely impact the networking opportunities usually so evident.—Michael Billig
