Coronavirus 'worse than 9/11' for NYC hotel industry

The city's hotel market is in its own state of emergency as coronavirus has hammered room rates and occupancy levels.

"Right now we have a lot of cancellations coming in," said John Lam, chairman and CEO of the Lam Group, a hotel developer and owner that has a portfolio of about 5,000 rooms in the city spread across more than a dozen properties. "We've seen vacancies rise to about 30% in our portfolio, and room rates have fallen by as much as 50%."

Lam said occupancy rates in his portfolio normally are above 90%. One of his particularly hard hit hotel properties just suffered $300,000 worth of cancellations for March, he said, erasing about a third of its usual monthly revenue.

"This is worse than 9/11," Lam said. "During 9/11 you still had government employees and the Red Cross coming in and staying at hotels. Now no one is coming to New York."