Gaylord Drops 180 in Nashville
[Update 2/16; 9 pm] Gaylord has now announced it will reduce 3.5% of its workforce nationwide, cutting about 350 jobs. 180 positions will be eliminated in Nashville.
According to the Fort Worth, Texas Star-Telegram, Gaylord Entertainment laid off 30 full-time people today (2/16) from its resort in Grapevine, Texas. The property has a workforce of about 1,850 total. The article says that Gaylord spokeswoman Martha Neibling refused to comment on possible cuts at other Gaylord properties in Nashville, Orlando, and the Washington DC area.
Gaylord CEO Colin Reed recently announced that the company’s Opryland hotel had suffered a 7.1% drop in revenue per available room during the 4Q 2008 compared with the previous year. “We ended the year in an economic environment that continued to rapidly decelerate and since then, has shown no signs of improvement,” Reed told the Nashville Busness Journal. “Meeting planners are deferring decision-making, shrinking the booking window for 2009 and 2010 business.”
Reed readjusted the firm’s 2009 outlook saying that company-wide Gaylord would suffer an 18-20% first quarter drop in revenue per available room. Unconfirmed reports point to additional national layoffs.
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Of course they lost money. In this economy, you have to look at the average person and or family and realize that money has to be saved somewhere. Unfortunatley, travel is one of the first areas to be hit. On top of that issue, you have a hotel charging in excess of 200.00 a night for a non view room in the off season and during the week. Why can they not understand that they are hurting themselves. I think they they need to take a look at where they are now and if they want to be around in the future.
Start by dropping room rates. Yes, this is a new concept. But think about it! 30% of your rooms full at 200.00 to 400.00 a night. Or, do we reduce prices and book more rooms at 125.00 to 280.00 per night. I would venture to say that the travelers would be more incline to book rooms under these conditions. This would also in turn increase rooms being booked and more money in the hotels hands.
In todays economy, which I think we can all agree isn’t going to improve anytime soon, the business community has to take some reduction in turn to make money. People still want to travel and visit beautiful places such as Opryland Hotel. But, we will need to give and take on both sides of the fence to survive the times.