When it comes to people's natural inclination to complain, the recently retired Jon Stewart may have put it best when comparing Jewish people to African Americans.
"We've come from the same history -- 2,000 years of persecution. We've just expressed our sufferings differently," the Jewish former "Daily Show" host once said. "Blacks developed the blues. Jews complained; we just never thought of putting it to music."
Cultural semantics aside, the sentiment is apropos when discussing the current state of the U.S. hotel industry.
Oh, sure, prices and room rates are surpassing prerecession levels. The U.S. each year continues to attract more visitors from overseas as the middle class in countries such as China, Brazil and India broadens, while inbound visa restrictions ease.
And while banks have started to free up funds for hotel developers to meet the uptick in demand by building more properties, room-supply increases continue to bump along at about 1% a year.
Still, one wouldn't know it by reading the recent statements coming out of some industry leaders.
The most recent example is the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA). After sitting quietly for five months, the trade group went public earlier this month on its opposition to Expedia's proposed $1.34 billion acquisition of Orbitz Worldwide, hinting that the Justice Department's review of the deal might be close to completion.
In a statement reminiscent of the Bill Murray line from the movie "Ghostbusters" -- "Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!" -- the Washington-based trade group warned of everything from shrinking consumer choices to the higher probability of deceptive practices from so-called "rogue OTA affiliates posing as direct hotel booking sites" and even threw in the threat of more challenges for smaller hoteliers who lack the marketing muscle of the Marriotts and Hiltons of the world.
"We believe this transaction and the resulting consolidation of the online travel marketplace will result in significant negative consequences, particularly for consumers, but also for the large number of our members who are small business owners and franchised properties," AH&LA CEO Katherine Lugar wrote in the Aug. 6 statement.
Of course, the potential OTA merger is just one point in a proverbial Bermuda Triangle that hoteliers say could spell the end of the resurgence they've experienced in the past few years. More stringent regulations in areas such as disabilities access and pushes by organized labor and progressive politicians for higher minimum wages in cities such as Los Angeles have some industry leaders in full Stop-Norma-Rae mode.
"We are under attack right now," Interstate Hotels & Resorts CEO and AH&LA Chair Jim Abrahamson told an audience at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference in New York in early June. "Government regulations have never been more oppressive than they are today."
Meanwhile, the growing ubiquity of the rental-by-owner sector dominated by companies like Airbnb and HomeAway have hoteliers and lobbyists trying to guard the industry's rear flank.
In a March interview with Travel Weekly, Hotel Association of New York City Chairman Vijay Dandapani decried the growth of that city's Airbnb listings and the lack of a crackdown by officials on violations of the city's short-term rental laws as "latent discrimination against the hotel community."
Stump speeches aside, business levels suggest these hoteliers shouldn't have too much to complain about these days. While some analysts as recently as last year picked 2015 as the year room-demand growth would start leveling off significantly, that simply hasn't happened.
After increasing 8.3% in 2014, U.S. revenue per available room (RevPAR) through the first six months of the year rose 7.2% from a year earlier, room rates advanced 4.8%, and occupancy topped 65%.
Additionally, the OTA sector isn't alone when it comes to consolidating as travel spending rebounds. With American Airlines and US Airways merging in late 2013, almost 70% of the domestic airline market is now controlled by just four carriers, according to the Transportation Department.
And (irony of ironies) domestic hoteliers themselves can be accused of having engineered their own lack of competition. About 30% of hotel rooms in the U.S. are independently branded, whereas a majority of hotels in Europe remain independent.
Granted, there are some reasons for some of the hotel sector's paranoia, especially when it comes to OTAs. Last year, about one quarter of hotel-room shoppers on hotel websites switched to OTAs to book, a switch that took place among only 16% of shoppers on airline websites, Phocuswright and Millward Brown Digital reported last month.
In the other direction, hotels were able to lure half the OTA hotel shoppers to book on hotel websites, while more than two-thirds of airline-ticket shoppers on OTAs switched over to airline sites.
What's more, when it comes to the pending Expedia-Orbitz buyout, there's real money at stake (otherwise known as "It's the pricing, stupid" theory), especially as the industry girds itself for an inevitable plateau -- even a potential drop -- in travel spending during the next few years.
The AH&LA estimates that hoteliers on average pay 11% higher commissions to Expedia than they do to Orbitz. And while Orbitz is far smaller than Expedia, the buyout still hints at the fact that about a fifth of the current OTA market in the U.S. could soon fall under higher pricing.
Meanwhile, Phocuswright and Millward Brown Digital reported that "alternative accommodations" websites like Airbnb and HomeAway boosted their monthly visitors last year by 24%, compared with a meager 3% increase for hotel websites.
In reality, though, hoteliers might have bigger worries than either the prospect of the most popular OTAs in the U.S. teaming up or the threat of potential guests moving to Airbnb or HomeAway. The bigger bogeyman could be online giants Google and Amazon, which have dabbled in the hotel-booking space, providing yet more competition for the eyes of prospective travelers.
Additionally, while hotels try to maintain a united front, some analysts have pointed out that no one's putting a gun to the heads of hoteliers to push millions of rooms a year in inventory into the hands of OTAs at discounted prices. U.S. hoteliers will allow OTAs to sell $28 billion worth of their rooms in 2016, up 63% from 2012, Phocuswright reported late last year.
Which brings to mind the line from an old Dire Straits nugget:
"When you point your finger 'cause your plan fell through, you got three more fingers pointing back at you."