What's around the corner? No one knows - Let's just hope it's not a train coming at full speed; Yeoh Siew Hoon reports on the sentiments expressed by hoteliers at a conference recently.

The news couldn't be worse on the airline side. A total of 24 airlines gone bust in the last six months. Rocketing fuel prices.

A warning of a collective loss of up to US$2.3 billion this year from IATA. Every airline chief, from Europe to Asia, is calling it a crisis. Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways, said, "We're definitely, as an industry, in a crisis situation."

Tony Tyler of Cathay Pacific echoes, "Slings and arrows are coming at us from all sides, and governments don't seem to understand. Now we are staring into the abyss."

Hotel chiefs in Asia are not yet calling it a crisis but they are silently bracing themselves for the pain to come. At the Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels Investment Conference in Singapore last month, the bullishness same time last year has given way to "cautious optimism".

Yes, that contradiction-of-terms term is being used again by hoteliers who are unsure as to what's going to hit them in the next few months.

Will Asia be insulated enough by the combined might of India and China? Two months ago, the answer was probably a more certain yes but with China struggling with the aftermath of its worst natural disaster, the situation is less clear.

Investment volume is dropping, Arthur Haast, JLL Hotels' global chief said. The irony is, equity is in plentiful supply. "Investment managers are sitting on piles of cash," he said. "Buyers and sellers are waiting for market direction. The market is not distressed, just inactive."

Professor Helmut Schutte of INSEAD called it "an uncertain world" in which new terms have surfaced – terms such as sub-prime lending crisis, commodities price boom, food shortages, inflation and stagnation and sovereign wealth funds.

While he said direct foreign investment into Asia would slow down in absolute numbers, Asia would get a larger share of the funds as investors seek shores outside Japan and the US.

He said that perhaps the old phrase "when the US sneezes, Asia catches a cold" could now be changed to "when the rest messes up, Asia may come to help".

InterContinental Hotels Group's chief Peter Gowers was the first at the conference to use the term "cautious optimism".

The company is still signing lots of contracts and has not yet seen a slowdown in the pace of growth, he said, but since last October, "we have been cautious but optimistic".

"Cycles come and go. It's a lot like a phony war – we are expecting a war but it's not happening yet."

Richard Hartman, CEO of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, said, "No one really knows what will happen and if anyone predicts, they will be wrong. You just have to keep watching what's going on and be prepared to act very quickly."

Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com

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