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1. New York City signs $1.86 billion hotels contract for homeless
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has signed a new three-year contract for $1.86 billion to provide emergency shelter to homeless families, the New York Post reports. The city's Department of Homeless Services reports there are more than 85,000 people a night trying to stay in city shelters.
The contract is with the Hotel Association of New York City Foundation, which represents almost 300 hotels in the city, according to the article.
“The contract is for emergencies not migrants, and allows capacity to be created as-needed and the budget depends on that need,” said Vijay Dandapani, president and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City.
2. UK Travelodge sets new door key policy after assault
The United Kingdom-based Travelodge hotel chain, separate from the brand in Wyndham Hotels & Resorts' portfolio, has changed its door key policy following the sexual assault of a guest staying at one of its properties in December 2022, the BBC reports. The man responsible for the attack was sentenced in February to seven and a half years.
"I would like to express again how deeply sorry I am for what happened to the victim and for the mistakes we made in handling this," Travelodge UK CEO Jo Boydell said in a statement yesterday. "We got things wrong and we should have acted sooner, and I am truly sorry for that."
Boydell added the company has done an internal review of its room access security policies and made changes to ensure that additional or replacement room keys are only issued when they receive explicit permission from the person or people staying in the room. The policy has been rolled out to all of its hotels.
The man, who knew the guest, had gained access to her room by lying to hotel staff about being her boyfriend. She later said hotel staff told her the man had passed the hotel security checks by providing her name.
3. Increase in gas prices alone won't deter US travel demand
Every day there are new headlines about how the United States' and Israel's war with Iran are affecting the cost of oil, but the price at the pump isn't necessarily going to lower American's desire to travel, at least not on its own, CoStar News Hotels reports.
Historically, higher gas prices have not led to a drop-off in U.S. travel, said Isaac Collazo, senior director of analytics at STR. When looking at the overall cost of a trip, the price of gas is a relatively minor part of it.
What may be different this time is how the higher price of gas fits into the bigger picture of the cost-of-living environment, he said. Lower- and middle-income households may feel more financially squeezed, and that may play a part.
“This time, over the last year, over the last six years, we've seen a very high cost increase in the cost of living,” he said. “So, this time, we could see some impact. But again, the impact would be limited to certain middle-income households and then lower-income households.”
4. More airport disruptions expected as TSA goes without pay
Hundreds of employees of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration have quit following a month without full pay as the partial federal government shutdown continues, CNN reports. Long lines and other disruptions are expected to continue as the U.S. enters spring-break season.
The TSA already has a reduced staff count as roughly 1,110 officers left the agency in October and November 2025 during the full government shutdown, CNN reports. The TSA is also seeing the callout rate for unscheduled absences by frontline officers reach to an average of 6%, up from 2% before funding shortage.
The partial shutdown is the result of Democrats and Republicans in Congress arguing over funding for the Department of Homeland Security as a proxy for their fight over immigration reform.
5. UK, European central banks expected to hold rates steady
The central banks for the United Kingdom and European Union are expected to hold their interest rates steady as concerns grow over the war with Iran stretches into a third week, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“We expect the [European Central Bank] to acknowledge that the economic fallout from the Middle East conflict remains highly uncertain at this stage, even if the direction of travel points to firmer near-term inflation and weaker economic activity,” economists at Barclays wrote in a note to clients.