CORONAVIRUS
273 | Digital Divides: Technology builds a hybrid of meetings and events in age of COVID-19
CORONAVIRUS
The U.S. hospitality industry is slowly getting back to business.
Leisure travelers are responsible for occupancy boosts in late May, especially Memorial Day weekend, STR reports.
Leisure travelers will continue to drive demand as the coronavirus crisis begins to ease, experts say.
Meanwhile, Oxford Tourism Economics reports that business transient and group bookings are not expected to return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2023.
What meetings will look like in the near term is anyone’s guess in the age of social distancing. Will groups be smaller? Will they include overnight stays? Will they be a mix of remote and in-person attendees and presenters?
In this episode of Lodging Leaders, we talk with Jeff Loether of Electro-Media Design about the audiovisual tools hotels will have to consider using if they want to attract meeting and event business. We also hear from Kristi White of Knowland, which helps hotels find meeting and group business.
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CORONAVIRUS
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346 | Repositioning For Recovery: Hotel conversions to outpace new builds
Lodging Econometrics has tracked the hotel industry since 1998. Its global database includes new-hotel pipelines as well as renovations and brand conversions. Hotel franchisers once eager to launch new brands are focused on converting existing hotels because it’s a faster way to recover revenue lost to the COVID-19 pandemic than through new construction. In Episode 346, Lodging Leaders explores the increasing number of conversions in the U.S. hotel industry and what owners and operators need to consider before repositioning an asset.
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345 | ‘Rosy View of Future’: Hotel industry sees unleashing of pent-up investor demand
In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., financiers anticipated a swell of distressed hotel businesses. Some raised rescue funds to respond to what they thought was a pending crisis. Though there are financial rescues taking place, the level of such activity is far below what industry advisers and fund managers expected. Commercial real estate investors positioned to act in the early days of the pandemic held off and are now just beginning to unleash their cash hoards totaling billions of dollars. Episode 345 of Lodging Leaders podcast explores the state of capital investment in the hotel industry.