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1. LA Hotel Employees Return to Work
Approximately 15,000 hotel industry members of the Unite Here Local 11 union in Los Angeles returned to work on July 5, but union executives said another strike is a definite possibility. The employees have returned to their posts without a new contract having been signed, according to news agency Reuters.
The strike, which began Sunday and stretched over the Fourth of July holiday, involved up to 19 hotels across Los Angeles and Orange counties, and according to the union, could spread to “any of the 41 other hotels in the region whose labor contracts also expired on June 30.”
2. UK Employers Tap Older Workers To Fill Labor Shortfall
Almost 65% of United Kingdom employers across all sectors are actively hiring or considering hiring staff over the age of 50 to fill in the notable hole in the demand for labor, according to The International Business Times. This percentage increases in the hotels and hospitality sector, where 7 in 10 are following this line of action.
Membership association UKHospitality said 45% of U.K. hotel and hospitality businesses are facing a “hiring shortage, which is resulting in a loss of £21 billion ($26.7 billion) revenue for the sector.” It added chef positions are the most in demand.
3. How Hotel Commercial Strategy Has Evolved
The disciplines of revenue management, marketing, sales and digital are closely connected in hotel operations, but according to commercial strategy experts at a roundtable event during HSMAI's 2023 Revenue Optimization Conference Americas, the pandemic has altered the landscape. Now there is a greater focus on communications and collaboration between the four areas, Hotel News Now’s Trevor Simpson reports.
One panelist, Christina Pedersen, vice president of commercial strategy at Aimbridge Hospitality, said commercial strategy must be a holistic approach, and while some properties may lean more heavily toward one discipline than another, the process now needs to be joint effort between all divisions of the commercial team.
4. World’s Biggest Firms Made $1 Trillion In Profits
According to charities ActionAid and Oxfam, the world’s largest 722 companies made more than $1 trillion in “windfall” profits in both 2022 and 2021 on the back of soaring energy costs and rising interest rates, The Guardian reports. “Windfall profits are defined as those exceeding average profits in the previous four years by more than 10%,” according to the newspaper.
The charities’ research showed these firms made “$1.08 trillion this way in 2021 and $1.09 trillion last year. … The collective profits were 89% higher than the previous four-year average covering 2017 [though] 2020.” The newspaper reports energy firms were the biggest winners, adding “of the 45 energy firms on Forbes list of the 2,000 biggest companies, they made on average $237 billion a year in windfall profits in 2021 and 2022.”
5. NYC Receives Largest-Ever US Federal Grant For New Tunnel
New York City has received what the New York Times reports is the largest U.S. federal mass-transit infrastructure grant of all time to help it build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River to connect the city and New York State to New Jersey. The grant for what will be only the second rail tunnel under the river is valued at $6.88 billion.
The U.S. Department of Transportation informed the “two-tube” tunnel’s sponsor, Gateway Development Commission, of the decision earlier this week to supplement the existing tunnel built in 1910. The entire project is expected to cost more than $16 billion, the newspaper added. The plan for a second tunnel first came to light in 2009, but during the Great Recession, work stopped when the then-governor of New Jersey said his state could no longer afford the project.