The current COVID-19 pandemic has created one of the worst hospitality and tourism industry crashes in modern American history. With taxpayers on the hook for tens of millions of dollars, the Kansas City Convention Hotel grand opening is delayed but will eventually debut to a new reality confronted by the travel industry.
The world won't soon forget the lessons of this pandemic or the adjustments we've all be forced to make . . . It turns out most face to face meetings can be performed via teleconferencing software and MOST of those meetings can be taken care of via e-mail or a phone call.
A stimulus will bail out the airlines but help for hotels will be harder to secure given strict regulations aimed at denying Prez Trump's hotels and most big chain as much relief . . .
Even worse, the local impact of the pandemic has been devastating . . .
Three KC hotels close after coronavirus pandemic rocks hospitality industry
Because we're all about solutions here at TKC . . . There is a practical remedy available but most people won't like it:
CNN: Today's hotel is tomorrow's coronavirus hospital
Deets:
"With global travel at a standstill -- and millions of people projected to contract Covid-19 in the coming months -- governments around the world are looking to otherwise closed hotels as a way to alleviate stresses on overburdened health systems.
"Some plan to turn hotels into shelters for coronavirus patients with mild symptoms, others as safe houses to isolate those who may have been in contact with confirmed cases.
"Still more hotels will be set aside for hospital workers who are exposed to patients daily and need a safe place to sleep close to their work . . . "
Accordingly . . .
OUR TKC BLOG COMMUNITY SUGGESTS KANSAS CITY CONVENTION HOTEL ACCOMMODATION FOR CORONAVIRUS VICTIMS IF THE NUMBERS WORSEN!!!
It's a tough call but let's not forget . . .
TAXPAYERS HAVE INVESTED HEAVILY IN THE CONVENTION HOTEL AND DESERVE A VOICE IN HOW IT'S UTILIZED!!!
As a contingency, locals must at least consider this emergency healthcare option that's clearly gaining "momentum" across the nation.
Developing . . .
Maybe the streetcar can shuttle them back and forth?
ReplyDeletethat meeting could've been an e-mail. That meeting could have always been an e-mail. This is a mantra that every productive person must repeat and repeat.
DeleteRemember that Alameda!
ReplyDeleteThat didn't work either and it didn't have to compete with a pandemic.
Stupid.
ReplyDeleteHospitals and hotels are not the same thing, by a mile.
^^^ Yet they did use hotels as hospitals in China during their crisis. Weird.
ReplyDeleteNo problem for Burke and the folks who brought the KCMO taxpayers this fiasco.
ReplyDeleteMike, the bond attorneys, "developers", lobbyists, and all the rest of the transaction folks have already gotten their bucks out of this deal.
Now it will be up to the KCMO taxpayers to try to keep the doors open, a thankless task even without the current economic collapse.
The hotel's already costing the taxpayers $4 million/year.
Another endless sucking chest wound,just like the P&L District.
How much renaissance can the residents afford?
Frosty momentum!
FROSTY MOMENTUM LOL
ReplyDeletewhat the fuck does that even mean?
^^Smoking too much quality weed.
ReplyDeleteAnd then nobody would want to stay there for sure. And Kansas City doesn’t have enough cased to justify using the hotel as a hospital.
ReplyDelete“Things are changing rapidly,” Dr. Steve Stites, chief of medicine at the University of Kansas Hospital, said Wednesday at the hospital’s now-daily press briefing. “We’re starting to feel the surge.”
ReplyDeleteA specialist in pulmonary and critical care medicine, Stites estimates that the number of COVID-19 cases should begin to spike in two or three weeks. It could be up to six weeks, he said, before we know whether efforts to contain the spread of the virus have been successful.
Likening the coronavirus outbreak to a football game, Stites said the Kansas City area is in the early first quarter, whereas New York, where the virus is spreading fast, is in the second.
Yeah that is a great idea. Have the most expensive hotel be a hospital for the homeless people. How about using the one at the stadiums that shut down because of the virus.
ReplyDeleteIf only chuck had survived Coronavirus to see this day.
ReplyDelete^^^ downtown is a better option, closer to the hospitals and the burn pits required to kill the virus
ReplyDeleteAll the sick should be put downtown come to think of it, containing it to the smallest section of the entire city that’s mostly empty, we could give up that small part of the city and save the rest of the city from spreading further. It really is a small sacrifice to save 450,000 people
ReplyDeletea great idea to repurpose the hotel for a year.
ReplyDeletethere might be a way to get health insurance and medicaid to pay.
Maybe the club level and suites at Arrowhead could be outfitted for the second wave in the autumn.
ReplyDeleteSo, during the plague, do we still have to pay $4 - million for catering?
ReplyDeleteDo they get more TIF money if they switch to being a hospital?
ReplyDeleteThe closed KANSAS CITY convention hotel should be used as a containment area for the people with the virus. When it has served its time for this purpose the city will condemn it for being a bio hazard site and demand it be demolished.
ReplyDeleteMore momentum.
City should hire all the pretty girls that worked at DST Systems to work in the "hotel hospital". They were all pretty much laid off when SSBC technology bought them out. Even DST's old empty buildings could be used to quarantine exposed people. Those girls got promotions by looking hot and "building the morale" of their managers and bosses. They sure raised the Boss's "morale" and were well rewarded for it. The guys at DST were just passed over for promotions even though their work was far superior. Superficial managers at their worst.
ReplyDeleteYou could use the entire downtown for a containment center, I think that’s the best idea for sure.
ReplyDeleteStaff the hotel with about 3 floors of top quality whores 18-24 years old. Utilize another floor for cheap access to any and all drugs and alcohol. We will get a lot of conventions and the hotel will be profitable.
ReplyDeleteAll of KC's hotel already have the top 3 floors filled with whores. But they arent that young. Many are corporate women giving their bodies away for promotions.
ReplyDeleteTOP PHOTO -- LOEWS MEMORIAL CONVENTION HOSPITAL
ReplyDeleteYou can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!!!
Those DST girls have decades of experience. I want one for my personal care giver. I will give her a promotion out of it!
ReplyDelete3:32 - Not yet but they will, because all the dumb millennials thought this virus was a joke,spread this shit and partied after being warned the virus was serious, but hey they watched CNN and CNN said it only kills old people and that wouldnt effect the young people so they partied on, now the virus has been shown to not only kill old people with underlying medical conditions, but young people who smoke, vape and who are real true dumbasses. Good luck young people!
ReplyDeleteIts a lung attacker. Age doesnt matter if you smoke your going on a ventilator. Vaping I am not sure about. Cocaine users - its going into the areas of your sinus you have damaged over the years. Sniffers and huffers of chemicals - get a burial plan now cause you are walking dead. China under reported deaths by the millions. Google the new that 21 million cell phones in china have been disconnected since the outbreak. They all love their phones more than we do. Stay in / stay alive.
ReplyDelete^^^ Thanks for the tips Doc Doogle
ReplyDelete2:08, you're a liar. CNN never said anything like that.
ReplyDeleteIt was Fox News who was saying this was just another impeachment scam.
Young people didn't listen because they're young.
OP budget will be hit also. It owns the Sheraton and OP convention center.
ReplyDeleteAll city budgets will be ruined. This is huge. We will have thousands of people die.
ReplyDeleteThe Coronovirus as givng S'lie James and all the Pro-Loews Hotel people a built in excuse on why this thing fails. S'lie and merry band of fiscally irresponsible cronies convinced everyone that KC needed this hotel and ram rodded this thing thru clowncil approval. Despite the fact that everyone with half a brain tried to tell him this was a bad deal for KC taxpayers and that KCMO doesn't have the travel business to justify the costs and risk to tax payers. Added to the fact that tax payer dollars should NEVER be used to help finance private development.
ReplyDeleteTravel and tourism is one of the industries taking the biggest hits in all this. NEver mind the fact that the convention industry had been seeing steady declines for years.
Now, 3 years from now when people have to finally admit that the hotel is upside down financially, "Well we didn't see the COVID-19 outbreak coming that really hurt what we had forecasted and had that not happened we'd be in much better shape". Which is utter bullshit. $4M/year from the general fund is just the beginning of what this will cost tax payers.
But hey, #KorruptCity