airport hotel food

well, i'm back in portland, just for the night so i can catch a 7 am flight back to atlanta and then on to soflo. 7 hours of flight time, plus security, plus boarding...adds up to a long freaking day.

rusty caught a flight home to spokane, so i'm flying solo and stay at the hotel marriot. it's a long hike (15 miles) into portland. so i'm faced with four dining options:

1. shiloh's
   
2. shari's sports bar
3. mcdonald's
4. the world famous courtyard cafe

given these delectable choices, i have to wonder why there are not better restaurants near hotel airports. the customer economics seems to support it:

• every night there is a captive audience, since the area is typically far from the city
  
• this audience is made of business travelers who can spend money since they on expense accounts
• they are probably fairly dissatisfied with existing options (e.g. the courtyard cafe)

take for example, where i am tonight. my hotel has 6 floors and probably 50 rooms on each floor, which means 300 rooms. at 70% full, that is at least 210 travelers. i think that about 90% of them are business travelers (judging by the attire of the folks in the lobby, and the fact that it is the airport hotel), that = 180 business travelers.

and there are 7 hotels in sight, of similar size. so 7 x 180 = 1260 people every night. i think that would support at least 1-2 restaurants in the area. lets say 50% want something better than the usual stuff, so 50% x 1260 = 630 dinners.

take an average bill of $40 x 630 dinners = roughly $2600.

while this will not support high end dining, it would mean better than the existing options. and this crowd is there almost every night of the week.