Red sky at night, think for yourself
Why do people listen to weather forecasts? It surely isn't because they want to find out what the weather is going to be like.
So there I am, standing in the kitchen, looking at another dull and dripping day dawning outside, and the radio presenter hands over to Michael Fish at the London Weather Centre, who says it's going to be another dull and dripping day outside and there'll be more to follow.
What he describes - wet and blustery in the far north of Scotland, squally in the South-west, misty in the Midlands - will actually make little or no difference to what I do today. I will still pull on a raincoat and walk to the bus stop, as I do every morning. I wear a raincoat because it's winter and, come Easter, I'll stop wearing it because it will then be summer.
So, thanks, Michael, but I don't really need to know from you what the weather is going to be like. I can make my own judgement on that.
Largely irrelevant
There are some people, of course, who will listen more carefully - fishermen, farmers and fell walkers, for example - but, for the most part, the weather forecast is a change of broadcasting pace but largely irrelevant.
I'm not condemning Michael Fish and his kind, however, for I do like listening to the weather forecast. I suppose it has something to do with wanting to know, with any degree of certainty, what the future holds.
At this time of year, horoscopes are everywhere and predictions for the coming 12 months are in every newspaper and magazine.
That's the norm - review of last year, predictions for next. And readers are attracted by this sort of thing because, like the weather forecast, it gives them a glimpse of what the year ahead has in store for them (which, in most cases, they will duly ignore).
It's the same in business. It's the season for company interim results, which come with a little tag at the end which predicts that things aren't expected to be much better in the three months to come.
Consultancies, too, are doing the same, publishing reports that say the year has been like this, and next year is going to be like that. "Bounce back in the UK hotel industry unlikely in early 2003," from TRI Hospitality is a good example.
Passing interest As with the weather, there will be operators which look very closely at such business indicators. But, also like the weather forecast, most people will take only a passing interest. They may occasionally base their company strategy on predictions they hear but, generally, they will do their own thing. They will look at the sky, decide for themselves if it's going to rain, and wear a coat, or not.
Sometimes it's best if we all just carry on, working in our microcosms, making our own small predictions.
There is a danger that we can read these predictions and base hasty decisions on them, and so, inadvertently, create a recession when really there isn't one.
Using the coat-in-winter-not-in-summer principle, companies will predict their business cycles - busy in summer, quiet in spring and autumn - and just get on with it.
And by not taking too much notice of the general outlook, by basing their business decisions on personal observations, they will avoid falling into any recessionary trap and cutting back for the sake of it or because others are doing it.
Listen to the forecast, if you wish to do so, but make your own rain checks in 2003.
Forbes Mutch
Editor
Caterer & Hotelkeeper
