Class action lawsuit filed against Marriott: Marriott International faces a class action lawsuit in London “brought on by millions of former guests demanding compensation” following a massive data breach, Reuters reports.
The data breach occurred between 2014 and 2018 and affected more than 300 million customers in the former Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide’s global database, Reuters reports. The breach potentially made guests’ credit card and passport information vulnerable. The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office estimates that approximately 7 million British guest records were compromised.
Martin Bryant, founder of technology and media consultancy Big Revolution, is a leader of the lawsuit claim for English and Welsh-domiciled guests. He told Reuters he hopes this case will raise awareness of the values of personal data and give guests a fair compensation.
A Marriott spokeswoman in London told Reuters the company doesn’t “have a comment to make at this time.”
Hotel industry faces significant wave of foreclosures: A new national report released by the American Hotel & Lodging Association on Tuesday shows that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hotel industry is “facing a historic wave of foreclosures.”
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the hotel segment has faced a historic number of delinquencies and is the most heavily hit sector of the commercial mortgaged-backed securities market. Nearly 4,000 hotel industry leaders sent an urgent letter to Congress urging immediate action to help hotels avoid foreclosure and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs,” the release states.
In July, $20.6 billion in hotel CMBS loans were 30 or more days delinquent compared to $1.15 billion as of December 2019. For perspective, the highest volume of delinquent hotel loans during the Great Financial Crisis was $13.5 billion.
Industry leaders offer advice in tough times: In a series of video chats during the recent Asian American Hotel Owners Association’s 2020 online conference, industry leaders candidly offered advice and perspective on the crisis facing the hotel industry, reports Hotel News Now’s Robert McCune.
Horst Schulze, who founded the Ritz-Carlton brand and The Capella Hotel Group, which he sold about a year ago, said in these “very unusual circumstances,” leaders must remember their vision and purpose.
“When I started Capella, I said, ‘I’m going to create the world’s greatest service organization.’ With Ritz-Carlton, I set out to create the world’s finest hotel company. That’s a vision, a purpose. I hire people to join me in that purpose,” he said.
“Now that you’re in this situation, your vision cannot change,” Schulze said. “Whatever that vision was, a leader does not give up on a vision. The other thing a leader does not give up on is values. But the priorities change. You have to be sincere about the circumstances, and with that sincerity changes priorities.”
Survey shows hotel construction slowed in California: After record-setting new hotel construction in California during the first half of 2019, the latest 2020 mid-year California Hotel Development Survey by Atlas Hospitality Group shows that pace has slowed.
The total number of hotels under construction declined 17.1% year over year, and the number of new rooms under construction fell 19.9%. Los Angeles County leads the state in number of hotels and total rooms under construction, with 49 and 7,650, respectively. However, only one hotel opened there in the first half of this year, the 24-room Prospect Hotel.
Airbnb takes steps to go public: Home-sharing platform Airbnb announced on Wednesday it has filed to go public after “its business was crushed by the pandemic,” the New York Times reports.
This strategic move would “cap a volatile year in which its business was devastated by the spread of the coronavirus, the newspaper reports. Before the start of 2020, the company was privately valued at $31 billion. Airbnb must now make a case to investors that the company can “thrive and turn a profit in a new era of limited travel.”
Ted Smith, president of tech-focused advisory firm Union Square Advisors, said Airbnb’s initial public offering plan shows the “resilience of the tech industry in the pandemic,” the Times writes.
“There’s going to be some choppiness in the short term until we get through the pandemic,” he said. “But I think it mirrors the overall faith that the market seems to have in the long term.”
Compiled by Dana Miller.