Dog days: The annual summer doldrums have hit the New Orleans-area hotel business. New Orleans CityBusiness says that July room occupancy rates were among the lowest in the top 25 markets that Smith Travel Research tracks. New Orleans-area hotels reported a 61.3% occupancy rate, down from 66.3% in June and 72.7% in July 2010. Anaheim, Calif., had the highest rate at 88.5%, while the Phoenix area had the lowest at 48.4%.
Will let employees use exchanges instead: A new survey from a large benefits consultant says nearly one of every 10 midsize or large employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014. Towers Watson says an additional 20% of the companies it surveyed last month are unsure about what they will do. The remaining 71% expect to continue offering benefits. Exchanges were devised under the health care overhaul last year and aim to provide an insurance marketplace that can be subsidized by the government based on people’s income levels. Benefits experts say retailers and companies that pay low wages are most likely to drop coverage for their workers. But they also caution that companies are far from making a final decision on this question.
