A guide to recessions, predicting COVID-19 impact: With more young professionals in the workplace, there are more people who have yet to operate through a downturn or an unforeseeable event like the COVID-19 pandemic, writes HNN’s Dana Miller.
To help those young hoteliers out, HNN has put together a guide for understanding the current pandemic and comparing it to the impact of past downturns.
David Loeb, founder and managing director of Dirigo Consulting, defines a downturn as a point where occupancy turns negative on long-term basis, which is what happened before 9/11, before the 2008 financial crisis and in late 2019.
“What that’s all about is less demand growth than there is supply growth on a 12-month-moving- average smooth basis,” he said. “That’s the first thing I tend to see a downturn as—net demand declines.”
What hotels will look like after coronavirus: Being greeted by the front desk or invited to a wine reception at a hotel will no longer be a normal practice once hotels reopen after the pandemic has passed, The Los Angeles Times reports.
“The coronavirus has turned hotel conventional wisdom on its head. After years of emphasizing the importance of face time and people skills among their ‘front-of-house’ staffers, hotels will be obliged to outfit them with masks (no smiles visible) and turn a spotlight on their housekeeping teams,” the news outlet reports.
The pandemic will also change how food is served, and the buffet could potentially go away for good.
Hotels give loyalty members more time to accumulate points: Big spenders with hotels and airlines won’t roll in many rewards this year, but hotels and airlines are giving their highest-spending customers a year to accumulate points to keep their business, The New York Times reports.
This extra year will give customers time to accumulate points that result in perks such as free upgrades, breakfast and club access.
Hotels and airlines might need to do more to keep customers loyal as they evaluate the economic landscape, the article states.
COVID-19 pandemic devastates tourism in Mallorca: The coronavirus pandemic has “destroyed the livelihood” across the tourism sector on the Spanish island of Mallorca, and hotel shutdowns have affected “reception staff to farmers who provide food for restaurants,” Reuters reports.
Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which welcomed 84 million visitors in 2019 “to maintain its position as the world’s second most popular holiday destination,” Reuters reports.
Gabriel Escarrer, CEO of Spanish hotel chain Meliá Hotels International, told the news outlet that the impact of the pandemic on the islands “will be like a war.”
“Not even the worst financial crises or (9/11) left us with visibility as low as it is now,” he said.
East Bay hotels to house homeless: Three hotels in the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay area are to become temporary shelters for homeless who show symptoms of the coronavirus, the East Bay Times reports.
The hotels to provide shelter include a Quality Inn in Oakland, California, the Marina Village Inn in Almeda, California, and the La Quinta Inn in Berkeley, California.
Almeda County supervisors unanimously approved agreements for the shelters on Tuesday.
Compiled by Danielle Hess.