Friday, January 08, 2010
Brad Parsons challenges economists with pessimistic tourism forecast
by Larry Geller
Brad Parsons is the analyst who effectively predicted the bankruptcy of Hawaii Superferry by estimating that it was not bringing in enough revenue each month to cover its costs. He also developed the Barf-O-Meter, which translated surf forecasts into a discomfort index for any “large capacity passenger ferry.”
Brad has just released a forecast that disputes what he describes as the optimistic economic forecasts of the Council on Revenues. His forecast is based on forward hotel bookings. See: Hawaii Visitor Industry Cratering as we Speak (1/8/2010).
The heart of his prediction is this:
Many hotels across the state have reservation bookings for January and February of 30% or less.
If this plays out, he says, it will be reported in March or April, and the budget deficit will be significantly larger than currently estimated.
Perhaps an economist will comment on this, but more likely we’ll just have to wait for that first quarter report.
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