Budget effects?

As I sit here in my office looking out across the golf course I can't help first considering the impact of the Chancellors statement on Eriska and secondly draw an analogy with our current situation. Firstly were I to produce a forecast for the bank and 6 months later have to revise it by a multiple of 4 I would never survive even if I tried to blame it on outside global factors. (And so we will be able to test next year at the General election). Whilst I think almost everybody in the country- apart from the Treasury- seemed to know how bad it was and indeed on a daily basis witness the economic changes we all anticipate that it will get better and hope that this will come sooner rather than later.

Personally I think the slow down will be even steeper but I do then accept that the growth could be just as rapid, using simple terms the lower you go the steeper thecurve can be to get you back to where you have come from - so realistically if there is potential capacity then this can be filled to help growth but maybe the chancellor forgot that you also need demand to fuel this need for supply- anyway lets hope those figures are right.

When drawing similaritiesies to Eriska, we as hoteliers are notoriously bad at either telling everybody how busy we are, so as not to seem prone to panic and also giving potential business the impression that we are as popular as our neighbours- simply put you would not want to eat in an empty restaurant if the next door one is busy or we also tend to be gloom merchants as well panicing at the first sight of a problem and trying to preempt changes in the market. In this respect I can sympathies with the Chancellor as he is trying to paint a picture of the potential of a sunny day tomorrow.

As I look out across the final green of the golf course Spring is certainly here the trees are now covered in a green haze, the birds are in full song so whilst we may be a bit quieter than last year everything is in position for a good year in terms of the physical side of Eriska and all we simply require is visitors to come and enjoty it. Being only a small family business we can therefore insure that we can maintain the standards of service and indeed could argue that with slighly less business we can increase these levels on those achieved before.

However we have also got to be careful not to leave ourselves open to the fragile market. We have in the last few days heard of two accounts going into administration and  whilst we fortunately were not exposed to heavily they will still impact on our plans but it is more that fact that both businesses are likely to reemerge from the experience in another guise simply casting off many small debts like ours and leaving a greater trail of devastation that riles me. Anyway the sun is now beating down despite the weather forecast of rain in the West Highlands so lets hope the budget predictions buck the experts views too!