One of the many fantastic scenes in Mel Brooks’ 1974 classic “Young Frankenstein” is when Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, played by Gene Wilder, and his sidekick Igor, played by the late, great Marty Feldman, took place as the two were exhuming a body from the local graveyard.

Frankenstein: “What a filthy job.”
Igor: “Could be worse.”
Frankenstein: “How?”
Igor: “Could be raining.”

Then it starts to pour.

That’s classic humor that nearly brings me to tears every time I watch the movie.

How is it relevant to the hotel industry? It isn’t, except if you think about Feldman’s eyes. He had what can only be described as bug eyes and they often were looking in different directions. It was great comedic relief in many of the movies in which he acted.

The hotel industry has a little bit of Marty-Feldman-Eyes Syndrome these days. After attending the ALIS Summer Update in Los Angeles on Tuesday, it’s evident that the industry has one eye looking forward and one eye wandering to the side—watching for any rogue blips that could stall the recovery that’s taking place. So much of this upturn is out of the industry’s hands—and top executives know it.

One of the biggest fears in the industry is the possibility of a double-dip economic downturn. There’s a certain apprehension floating around the industry that the current upswing is a precursor to another downturn. That means a W-shaped recovery, and honestly, it’s unlikely the hotel industry could survive another downturn if it began sometime during the next six months.

So, the industry is chugging along acting as if everything is looking good, but it has one eye watching … and waiting.

During Tuesday’s event, which was webcast and can be seen here, a question came to the number-cruncher speakers who were giving the data dump that accompanies most of these types of gatherings: “Is there a chance of a W recovery?”

Mark Lomanno, STR’s president and self-described numbers-geek, put it this way: “Any kind of external event could trigger that. I still think there’s a lot of softness in the economy. I give it about a 1 in 3 chance.”

So, the odds are that the recovery is here to stay. I’ll take 2-to-1 odds all day long.

It’s definitely going to take a revival of average daily rate for a true recovery to take place. That’s probably not going to be any time soon as hotels everywhere are trying to solidify their demand before aggressively driving rate. In many cases, it’s almost as if they’re waiting to make sure nothing bad is going to happen before they turn up the heat on rates.

So it all goes back to Igor, when he tells Dr. Frankenstein: “Wait Master, it might be dangerous ... you go first.”