Chris Thompson
CEO
Visit Florida

Chris Thompson

"The volume's always the thing that comes back the quickest and the rate, or the prices, tend to be a little bit slower. So we're sort of looking for progress in the area of rates. Not only were we suffering during our great recession, but a lot of the economies around the world were suffering, and some of our feeder markets — Canada being the largest, U.K. being the largest overseas market and others — suffered with some pretty significant double-digit declines in visitation to the state. The encouraging thing was that the Latin American market, mostly those in South America — Brazil, Argentina, Colombia — held up very well. As major, major countries like China, India, South Korea continue to open up, we're looking for opportunities to potentially increase international travel to Florida significantly."

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Rick Sasso
President/CEO
MSC Cruises
Miami

Rick Sasso

"It sure looks like 2011 will continue to show some strengthening in our pricing and some advance booking patterns that allow us to manage our inventory a lot better."

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Harris Rosen

Harris Rosen
President/CEO
Rosen Hotels & Resorts
Orlando

"The weak economy and inept (federal) government are so intertwined that if one is to begin to see light at the end of the tunnel, I do believe that one also has to believe that this current administration is a one-term administration. I would then say that as soon as that becomes a reality the economy will begin to boom, but if that's not a reality, I think we can expect to suffer the way we have been the past two years for at least another four to five years. ... Room rates have declined over the last couple of years. I think they may stabilize a bit in 2011."

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Kevin Sheehan

Kevin Sheehan
CEO
Norwegian Cruise Line
Miami

"I do believe the consumer will wait a little bit longer to book their vacation, but they ultimately will. I would like to see six to nine months of consistency with what's coming out of Washington. We have the election behind us. We have inflation fears in China. There's always something that just seems to be out there that's keeping everybody a little bit nervous."

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