Yesterday, the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International announced that it was cancelling its annual conference, which was scheduled to be held early next month at a resort hotel in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Instead, the Association will hold a virtual conference over the web.

When even hotel industry groups are cancelling their travel plans, lodging companies will take any good news they can find.

This weekend offers a bit of temporary hope, at least for hotels in the Detroit metro area.

The men's NCAA basketball Final Four tips off tomorrow at Ford Field in Detroit, with the championship game set for Monday night. Given that premiere sporting events like the Final Four historically have a very significant, albeit short-term, impact on the local lodging industry for the host city, we decided to take a look at how the two largest publicly-traded lodging companies, Marriott (MAR) and Starwood (HOT), stand to benefit this weekend.

When it comes to exposure to the Detroit market, Marriott is the clear winner, at least for the next few days.

While Starwood has only 6 hotels with 1,865 rooms within 35 miles of downtown, Marriott checks in with 45 hotels containing 7,648 rooms within the same area.

Given Marriott's larger size and greater concentration of hotels in the United States, the fact that the company has more exposure to the Detroit area is not surprising.

Marriott has approximately 3,200 hotels and 560,000 rooms in its portfolio, with approximately 85% of its properties located in the United States. Starwood, however, has approximately 940 hotels containing 285,000 rooms in its portfolio, with roughly half of its properties in the U.S.

Even taking the relative sizes into account, however, Marriott still has greater exposure to the Detroit market. Starwood's Detroit-area hotel rooms account for approximately 0.6% of its total portfolio, while Marriott's Detroit rooms account for approximately 1.4% of its total portfolio.

While Marriott will likely get a bump in occupancy percentages and room rates at its Detroit metro properties this weekend, the ongoing exposure to a market hit hard by the economic downturn and challenges facing the U.S. automakers is likely a negative attribute, in our opinion.

Any boost to operating metrics, no matter how temporary, will be welcomed in the current operating environment. In the larger picture, however, we expect the industry as a whole to face significant challenges throughout 2009, and we maintain our negative outlook on the sector.