Cherita called Ferne Armstrong, the reservations manager of the hotel, and asked her what she thought. Like Cherita, Ferne was concerned about the possible displacement of higher-paying customers, but offered to do further investigation into the expected room sales and associated room rates for the desired dates. Since the dates were more than six months in the future, Ferne had not yet developed forecasts. But she was able to provide data on room sales and average room rates from the same days of the previous year (Exhibit 7).
Soon after Cherita returned to her office to analyze the data, she was interrupted by a phone call from the head of the WICB wanting to know the status of his request. She promised to have an answer for him before the end of the day. As soon as she hung up, Martineau called and chatted about the huge marketing potential of being the host hotel.
Cherita shook her head and wondered, "What should I do?"