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274 | Construction in a Pandemic: Hotel builders face unexpected challenges
CONSTRUCTION
In the first quarter of this year, more than 140 new hotels opened in the U.S., reported Lodging Econometrics.
In March, the U.S. had 150,000 rooms under construction, said STR. It’s the highest end-of-month total the company has reported.
Jan Freitag, senior vice president of lodging insights at STR, said he expects hotel construction to continue throughout the year. But because of the low customer demand caused by the coronavirus crisis, hotel developers are not in a rush to open and projects will spend more time in construction.
Also impacting the timelines are the availability of building materials due to supply chain disruptions and challenges in finding skilled laborers who want to work during a pandemic.
This episode of Lodging Leaders podcast looks at the current state of hotel construction and explores what the future might hold with regard to new development in the shadow of COVID-19. We interviewed construction company executives and hotel developers to get an idea of the challenges they’re facing in getting a job completed and opened.
Resources and Links
- Larry Spelts of The Indigo Road Hospitality Group
- Azim Saju of Hotel Development and Management Group
- Bill Wilhelm of R.D. Olson Construction
- Stephanie Hall of DAG Construction
- Next Generation in Lodging webinar
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317 | Together Again: U.S. hotel industry begins to see return of small meetings
Ginny Morrison of Evanston, Illinois, is a 33-year veteran of Spire Hospitality, a hotel management company with a portfolio that spans coast-to-coast. As vice president of sales and marketing, Morrison saw the coronavirus pandemic decimate the meetings business. More than a year later, she’s witnessing a comeback as small-meeting planners are actively booking events for the last half of 2021 and beyond. As public health agencies expand COVID-19 vaccination programs across the U.S. and states ease up on public-gathering restrictions designed to keep the virus at bay, the hotel industry is seeing small meetings begin a comeback. In Episode 317, Long Live Lodging covers the state of the small-meetings sector and how hotels can grab their share of the meetings business during and post-pandemic. This report is part of our ongoing coverage about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the hospitality industry.
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316 | Pandemic Trailblazer: Hunter Hotel Investment Conference leads lodging industry’s 2021 event circuit
The Hunter Hotel Investment Conference will be the industry’s first large event to be held during the coronavirus pandemic. The Atlanta event will be a hybrid format of in-person and virtual access, also an industry first. Lee Hunter, chairman of the conference, knows the level of expectation is high among other conference planners as well as industry professionals eager to network after more than a yearlong hiatus. Episode 316 of Lodging Leaders podcast features Hunter as he tells what it takes to re-launch the industry’s conference circuit amid the COVID-19 outbreak.