[Excerpt] Not all hotels participated equally in the recent industry plunge—brought on by both recession and terrorism—and not all are recovering at the same rate. By almost any measure the U.S. lodging industry as a whole was hard hit by the events of September 11, 2001. Demand forecasts released and revised in the closing weeks of 2001 indicated that the industry was experiencing the worst of times.1 Moreover, east-coast news media and commentators projected the devastating effects felt in New York, Washington, D.C., and other eastern cities on the entire nation. Some experts were careful to observe that the unarguably huge influence on the industry was not affecting all hotel types, all states, or all cities in equal measure, but most analysts were sounding an alarm. Particularly hard hit were luxury hotels in major cities, while those in secondary and tertiary markets reported a more muted effect. In all of this we found little attention being given to just which hotels were hurt the most and, indeed, whether any areas of the country were unscathed or even prospering.