Interesting. I was relying largely on your statement, back when you first
contemplated buying the hotel, that "Surprisingly, not very many visitors
are pilots, according to my friend. I chalk this up to a simple lack of
advertising/marketing to the pilot crowd--which Mary and I would rectify
quickly". But if your expectations didn't pan out, then I stand corrected.

The simple fact is that for every pilot, there are 99 (or more) wannabes.
You know who I mean:

....The folks who took a lesson, and ran out of money or gumption, but love
airplanes...

....The folks whose father/husband/brother flew F-51/86/104/15s in World War
II/Korea/Viet Nam/The Gulf War...

....The folks who never put together the $3500 it cost to become a pilot, but
can spring $99 to be surrounded by luxury and aviation...

....And, yes, the folks who love the *thought* of aviation, but never had the
guts to get out there and do it...

Bottom line, Gary: We're vastly outnumbered by the non-flying public, and
they stay at hotels just as often (or even more often) as than pilots do.
Do the math, and you'll see that pilots will NEVER be more than 5% of our
annual income, unless -- God help us -- the rest of the non-flying public
decides to stay somewhere else.

That said, when you figure that pilots are far less than 1% of the public,
yet 5% of our business comes from pilots, you can see that we're doing a
good job of attracting a LOT of pilots. It's a rare day that I don't have
someone to hangar fly with -- and THAT, my friend, is why we're doing it.

One thing still puzzles me, though. An argument you've made in favor of
the airport's government subsidy is that the airport is good for local
business. But if even an *aviation-themed hotel* has its business
*diminished by a factor of three or four* by having the airport next door,
then I have trouble understanding how the airport's net economic effect
could actually be positive. (I'm not saying it couldn't be so--just that
it's hard to understand offhand.)

I'm always arguing in favor of the airport because it brings a huge return
to the city ($5.7 million) for a tiny annual investment ($180K).

See:

http://alexisparkinn.com/Iowa%202000...n_aviation.pdf

Does that mean that turning the airport into condos and apartments wouldn't
bring MORE money into the city coffers? Perhaps not. But that same
argument can be used on every piece of municipal land, including parks,
parking garages, and 4-lane roads. EVERYTHING would bring in more tax
revenue if the Sears Tower were built on top of it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"