Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Purely anecdotal—but impressive nonetheless (2)

About two months ago I posted some very optimistic comments from a friend who runs a well-known construction and remodelling business in the Inland Empire, and who had seen an impressive upturn in new business in recent months. Now comes this from my son who has been working in a store in the heart of Waikiki Beach for the past several years. He's been very down on the state of business for well over a year, but suddenly things have improved:

Just wanted to let you know that the past week has been amazing out here in Waikiki. Tons of people from all over the world (Japan, Australia, South America, Canadians, and strangely, Americans) have been spending $ as if it were burning a hole in their pockets. We haven't seen it like this in two years, maybe three. Sales have quadrupled. People are saying that it should continue at least through mid- January. It's amazing.

9 comments:

Colin said...

Went snowboarding today. The line to buy lift tickets was the longest I had ever seen -- took 30 minutes with all windows open. Maybe something, maybe nothing.

Scott Grannis said...

Where there's smoke, there's fire I say

alstry said...

Scott:

With the rising tensions around the world, now even in South America between Venezuela and Colombia, do you factor conflict, terrorism, and/or Military Keynesianism into your forecasts?

There seems to be more and more smoke these days, even in the underwear of passengers on tranatlantic flights.

jj said...

Could this be a manifestation of 'frugality fatigue'?

Cabodog said...

All of a sudden, we're getting inundated with rental inquiries for our beach vacation rentals.

I attribute it to post-Christmas internet surfing, winter hitting hard and of most importance, people coming to the realization that they made it through the dark tunnel and it's okay to emerge and have fun.

Thoughts are shifting from "I might lose my job" to "oh my gosh, I still have my job, my house and my stocks/401K are up 60%... I guess I made it through okay."

I hear other stories of luxury goods picking up. Lines at Costco are long and the carts are filled with other-than-essentials for the first time in months.

Bill in NC said...

East coast ski resort worker bee here.

We are doing fine so far.

As long as the weather holds (cold, we make our snow) everything is peachy.

We probably do better in tough times (people will drive to us for a long weekend instead of flying out west for a week)

Colin said...

Bill,

I am out West (Colorado) at the moment. The ski resorts here seem to be doing fine.

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