As we have seen over the last two years, leisure travelers are an incredibly resilient demand segment. Not even a global pandemic could keep some people off the road.
Looking ahead to this summer and to years ahead, there are high expectations for leisure demand, especially as travelers continue to blur the lines between fun trips and working remotely.
Americans have shown increased interest in taking road trips over the last several years, and that interest has grown during the pandemic. As more travelers hit the road, there’s something hoteliers could do that would help them stand out among a growing group of car owners: install electric charging stations.
The Biden administration’s plan to invest $5 billion into a public network for electric vehicle chargers along interstate highways over the next five years creates an opportunity for hoteliers who hope to get more demand from road-trippers.
The Washington Post reports that while electric vehicles make up a small fraction of annual car sales, the creation of a network of chargers would encourage more Americans to switch over from gas-powered cars.
“Guidance issued Thursday by a joint office of the departments of energy and transportation calls for states to first tackle charging near interstates — ideally within a mile of the highway — creating a network that is ‘convenient, reliable, affordable and equitable,’ the article states.
The $5 billion investment won’t be enough to cover all the needs of electric vehicle drivers on longer trips, but it’s certainly a start. Also, that means hotels with chargers along their route or their destination will offer travelers a trusted place to charge their vehicles during their stays.
Installing electric vehicle chargers, especially higher-powered ones to allow for faster charging, isn’t cheap, but it absolutely warrants investigating to see what the return on investment could be. It might be worth it to install some chargers, either now or in the near future, but you won’t know until you research it.
Along with helping bring in some road-tripper demand, the chargers create some other potential revenue streams for hoteliers and their parking lots. Perhaps there’s an option in which hotel owners can lease out parking spots to charging unit companies that will determine their own prices for drivers looking to top off their battery. Hotel owners could buy the charging units themselves and in turn charge drivers for their use.
Hotel owners and operators would need to determine how and when the chargers would be used and who could access them. Maybe they would be available to anyone, not just hotel guests, as long as they’re paying. Maybe the units will be for guests only, but that would require some sort of policing by hotel staff.
Perhaps there’s a middle ground available wherein the hotel has some parking spots with chargers reserved for guests — an upsell opportunity when booking a room — with others available to anyone, guests and passing drivers alike.
The good news is no one needs to know the answers to these questions, and others that will certainly arise, right now. The $5 billion investment from the federal government will be spread out over five years, and who knows how long it will take for the installations to actually begin.
Regardless of how quickly the cogs of government actually move, know that electric vehicles are growing in popularity. Deloitte published research on the adoption of electric vehicles in July 2020, forecasting total global electric vehicle sales growing from 2.5 million in 2020 to 11.2 million in 2025 to 31.1 million by 2030. Domestically, the company predicts that electric vehicles will account for 27% of new car sales by the end of the decade.
Granted, this research came out toward the start of the pandemic and doesn’t factor in the more recent supply-chain issues we’ve experienced, but those issues delay, not stop, what is an inevitability.
As gas prices continue to work their way up over time and the price of electric vehicles come down, you can expect more travelers will have a battery-powered car in their garages. As those owners take trips with their families to see the U.S., they’re going to need somewhere to stay, and you just may own the beds and the parking spots to let them recharge.
You can reach me at bwroten@hotelnewsnow.com and @HNN_Bryan.
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