Hotel Management Turns Against Tourism Board

Let's say you own a small business. You’re trying to make every dollar count, but sometimes business travel is essential. You need to stay in the Shoals for five days; do you stay in Florence where you’ll pay $116.00 for a basic one hundred dollar room, or $111.00 for the same room across the river? In other words, would you stay in Sheffield or Muscle Shoals if it saved you $25.00?

Or how about this: Money is no concern, but you’re no fool either; where do you stay? Most visitors, especially if they’re here to play golf in the first place, will easily choose Colbert County.

Ahh, but there will also be those tennis tournaments. Maybe there will be and maybe there won’t be. Has Robbie Baby offered up any names for these organizations that wish to play on new courts in Florence…new outdoor courts?

Don’t count on locals to play, unless you close the existing courts, and maybe not even then. Why are the existing courts so underutilized? Most true tennis aficionados either have some sort of club membership or have forked out the blunt to build their own back yard courts.

Speaking of new tennis courts, just when did these proposed jewels morph from indoor courts to regular run of the mill outdoor lawn tennis set ups? Mayor elect Steve Holt was totally correct when he stated things were moving at an Eddie Frost pace.

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Some quotes from local hotel management/civic leaders:

"If the tourism board and (current) City Council tries to force this thing, it means they aren't listening to the public, plain and simple." Steve Holt

"We want them to listen to us, but they never really have, and the tourism board has certainly never cared about hospitality employees' opinions. I still have to question why this happened without our knowledge and why." Vickie Atwood Romine

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Is there a bottom line? Perhaps it’s that of the five percent increase, of which the tourism board gets two-fifths. Can’t you just hear Robbie Baby singing, “Yea, Yea!”

But if Florence becomes the loser in the scenario? Will Robbie Baby then sing, “We never saw it coming.”

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David Suchet as Van Helsing!