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CORONAVIRUS
October 14, 2020290 | DAY-CATIONS: Hotels turn guest rooms into private office spaces
With hotel occupancies hovering around an average of 50 percent, owners and operators are seeking new ways to generate revenue beyond traditional overnight stays. One solution in the works is day use of hotel rooms. Hotel companies such as Red Roof, Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Hilton are promoting the practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ahead of the curve is HotelsbyDay.com, a day-use booking platform that is marketing hotels as the new office space. Long Live Lodging explores the unconventional use of hotels and how owners and operators can position their properties to attract day users. This is part of our ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hotel industry.
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CORONAVIRUS
October 7, 2020289 | OTA Protest: Reform Lodging members to blackout rooms
Reform Lodging is a new organization of hotel owners formed to address problems its members are facing as a result of the downturn in business caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. First issue on its list is the size of commissions levied by online travel agencies. Reform Lodging is asking its nearly 2,000 members to remove their rooms from OTA inventory on Friday and Saturday to protest the compensation practice. Long Live Lodging reports on the “Lights Out, OTA!” campaign and explores the financial implications of OTA commissions and franchisers’ reservation fees on owners of branded hotels. This report is part of Long Live Lodging’s ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hotel industry.
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CORONAVIRUS
September 30, 2020288 | ‘The Big Pause’: Hotels retooling employment policies as business slowly returns
Two viruses emerged in the U.S. this year – COVID-19 and society’s backlash against racism. The coronavirus pandemic forced hotels to close or drastically cut back on their workforces as occupancy plummeted to unprecedented lows. And America’s streets resounded with the voices of citizens protesting racism as businesses began to respond by promising new and better commitments toward diversity, inclusion and equality in hiring and promotion. In Episode 288 of Lodging Leaders podcast, we explore the issues hotels are facing in bringing back laid-off workers and recruiting new employees in the midst of a health pandemic that seems to have no end and society’s desperate call for Corporate America to get serious about ending systemic racism.
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CORONAVIRUS
September 23, 2020287 | The Long Haul: Extended-stay hotels show their strength in a crisis
Extended-stay hotels are weathering the coronavirus crisis better than their transient cousins, according to reports. The Highland Group’s half-year report shows economy and mid-priced extended-stay hotels are faring better than upscale extended-stay accommodations. Second-quarter earnings reports from companies such as Extended Stay America prove the resiliency of the sector, especially when sales teams shift their focus to new prospects such as college students, leisure travelers who value the kitchen and essential workers in it for the long haul. Long Live Lodging examines what gives extended-stay its muscle in a weak economy. This report is part of our ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hotel industry.
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CORONAVIRUS
September 9, 2020285 | ‘Allure of the Door’: Exterior-corridor hotels trending in COVID-19 pandemic
Almost overnight, the roadside motel is a hot commodity. Travelers are going by car and when they stop they want the safest stay possible. The coronavirus pandemic has pushed health and safety to the top of hotel guests’ most-favored-amenity list and exterior-corridor properties appear to provide more of a risk-free stay than their interior-corridor cousins. Long Live Lodging examines the new shine travelers have put on exterior-corridor motels during the COVID-19 crisis and how brands heavy with motel-style properties are responding to the trend. This report is part of Long Live Lodging’s ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hotel industry.
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DIVERSITY
September 2, 2020284 | Sharing the Wealth: Hotel industry leaders want to bring Black investors into the fold
The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting downturn in the travel industry will make it difficult for investors to find the capital they need to acquire and develop hotels. That means minority investors, in particular Black Americans, might face an uphill climb in qualifying for bank loans unless they can close the ever-widening equity gap. Several read more
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DIVERSITY
August 26, 2020283 | Seizing the Moment: Black hotel owners and investors see opportunity to prosper
In a recent Zoom conference hosted by the African American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, hospitality entrepreneur Kristin Kitchen talked about her lodging company that showcases Black heritage and supports minority-owned companies. Kitchen is part of a trend toward building hospitality ventures related to Black history and culture, a sub-sector of read more
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CORONAVIRUS
August 19, 2020282 | ‘People Have Changed’: Hospitality industry deals with workers’ mental health in the age of COVID-19
The coronavirus crisis has put unprecedented amounts of stress not only on health care systems and economies but on workers’ mental health. That’s the first and bottom line of a recent study by the Society of Human Resource Managers. The professional association surveyed more than a thousand workers in mid-April and found that nearly half read more
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CORONAVIRUS
August 12, 2020281 | Rescue Capital: Hotel financiers seek opportunities to invest in distressed assets
In June, Watermark Lodging Trust, a Chicago REIT, sold its Hutton Hotel in Nashville for $70 million. The price is $7 million less than what the REIT said it paid to acquire and upgrade the hotel seven years ago. A month later, Watermark said it signed a deal in which it sold shares worth $200 read more
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CORONAVIRUS
August 5, 2020280 | Premium Letdown: Hotels challenge property insurers’ refusal to cover COVID-19 revenue loss
As the hospitality industry struggles to mitigate the massive loss of revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of hotel owners are filing lawsuits to force their property insurance providers to cover their financial casualties. Meantime, state and federal lawmakers are considering legislation that would mandate U.S. insurance companies pay for business losses related to read more
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DIVERSITY
July 29, 2020279 | Inclusion is a Unicorn Part 2: ‘We are actually doing badly’
We’re trying something different today. We’ve teamed up with a group called Next Generation in Lodging, a diverse team of mid-career hospitality professionals who want to have significant input into the future of the hospitality industry. We’ve worked with them to produce and provide a platform for a panel discussion about diversity and inclusion in read more
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CORONAVIRUS
July 22, 2020278 | CMBS Distress: Thousands of hotel owners seek relief from billions of dollars in debt
Since the beginning of March, the hotel industry has lost more than $40 billion in room revenue. Hotels continue to lose $400 million every day, according to STR and Tourism Economics. The historic loss of income caused by the coronavirus pandemic is rendering hotel owners unable to pay their property mortgages. While many have worked read more
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CORONAVIRUS
July 8, 2020277 | Contagious Ideas: Hospitality brand and design experts search for creative solutions in the age of COVID-19
In the introduction of his book, “Hotel, an American History,” A.K. Sandoval-Strausz writes: “The hotel as we know it today did not evolve randomly or naturally, nor did it develop as some sort of automatic response to structural needs. Rather, it was the deliberate creation of an identifiable group of people who lived in a read more
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DIVERSITY
July 1, 2020276 | A Measured Response: Hotel industry hires for diversity but fails with inclusion
Many companies in the hotel industry claim they practice diversity in their hiring practices. When questioned about how many Black people they employ, most companies can back up their hiring outcomes with data. That’s all well and good, but what’s missing in most employment demographics is a measurement of how inclusive the company is not read more
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DIVERSITY
June 24, 2020275 | ‘Inclusion is a Myth’: Next Generation in Lodging challenges industry’s status quo on race and diversity
Imagine holding a conference on racism, diversity and inclusion in Corporate America and seeing your event invaded by outsiders shouting racial epithets and vulgarities while flying both the Nazi and American flags. Actually, there is no need to imagine it because it happened earlier this month during a digital event organized by the founders of read more
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CONSTRUCTION
June 17, 2020274 | Construction in a Pandemic: Hotel builders face unexpected challenges
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 read more