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More than 230 Boston Marriott Copley Place employees who were fired in September 2020 due to the pandemic are now launching a boycott of the hotel, the Boston Herald reports.

The boycott includes urging people and groups to not stay, dine or host events at the hotel, which is the second-largest hotel in Boston. Though the workers did not have a union, they are being supported by Unite Here Local 26.

Elizabeth Morales, who was a housekeeper at the hotel for 26 years, said she and her colleagues were told that if they wanted to return to work at the property once business picked up, they would need to reapply for their roles, "without regard for seniority."

Public real estate investment trust Host Hotels & Resorts owns the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposed legislation to restrict hotel development isn't expected to cause immediate challenges for developers, but could stall future development at time when new rooms are needed, write HNN's Dana Miller and Bryan Wroten.

Dan Lesser, president and CEO of LWHA Hospitality Advisors, which has its headquarters in New York City, said the city isn't currently suffering from a shortage of hotel rooms, but it could get to that point in the future.

The legislation could "be a significant hurdle" to new hotel development when the city needs it, he said, adding de Blasio's reasoning does not seem logical.

In other New York City news, de Blasio has announced the city will fully reopen on July 1 in hopes that people "are going to flock here from all over the country," The New York Times reports. However, restoring the city to a pre-pandemic state will be no easy task.

"The hospitality industry does not expect tourism, a key economic engine of the city, to return to pre-pandemic levels for years," the article states. "Transit officials do not believe ridership on the subway, which is still closed for two hours each night, will completely rebound until 2024."

Vijay Dandapani, president of the Hotel Association of New York City, said though the reopening announcement is "a very positive step," many major events and conferences are still canceled, and hotels are still years away from returning to normal occupancies.

Following the announcement earlier this week that Europe could soon welcome fully vaccinated Americans, the search for travel bookings has risen, The New York Times reports.

An analysis of travel bookings from travel app Hopper shows a 47% increase in searches for airfares from the U.S. to Europe. Paris, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Athens and Amsterdam are the most popular cities for bookings.

"Europe is one of the top three destinations for Americans, with millions visiting every summer. Several European countries struggling under the virus, like Greece, Spain and Italy, have relied on tourism dollars — specifically American tourism dollars — to fuel their economies for decades," the article states.

Though demand across the hospitality industry is picking up, concerns over a labor shortage are being raised that could weigh on the recovery, Barron's writes.

C. Patrick Scholes, managing director of lodging and leisure equity research at Truist Securities, said "while it is difficult to gauge the financial impact labor pressures could have, the concern is that higher wages could outweigh post-COVID operating efficiencies at hotels."

The labor shortage also remains a wild card for both hotel and casino stocks, and could negatively affect customer perceptions.

“Now the issue is that many hourly employees who were let go in 2020 have permanently moved on from their pre-COVID industry roles in no small part due to better paying and more stable industries elsewhere,” Scholes said.