Hoteliers Navigate Permanent Changes to Guest Behaviors, Business Models
Some Still-Shifting Industry Trends Require 'Guessing Game'
On this day two years ago when the first massive wave of COVID-19-related shutdowns hit the United States, many hoteliers thought the impacts would be temporary. Now, many of the challenges facing the industry pertain to shifting business models and expectations that are expected to be permanent.
On this day two years ago when the first massive wave of COVID-19-related shutdowns hit the United States, many hoteliers thought the impacts would be temporary. Now, many of the challenges facing the industry pertain to shifting business models and expectations that are expected to be permanent.
“We’ve been living with this for two years. It’s more than just an event that we had to deal with,” said Hostmark Hospitality Group President and CEO Jerry Cataldo during a recent Hotel News Now roundtable discussion. “It’s been a change of life. People have changed how they think about life and how they want to live their lives.”
Hotel News Now, in partnership with Pinkowski & Company, convened a group of U.S. hotel industry executives to talk about the state of the industry two years into COVID-19 and the opportunities and lingering challenges wrought by such widespread disruption.
“There is permanent change,” Cataldo said. “Some of it is good. Some of it is scary. And there’s a lot of the industry that just doesn’t know what’s going to happen for them — what business travel is going to look like, what their employees will want. It’s going to evolve and we don’t see all the answers clearly.”
Hostmark is a third-party hotel management company based in Chicago.
Roundtable participants, who ranged from hotel investors and owners to third-party managers, designers and architects, agreed that the changes happening across all levels and segments of the industry are a mixed bag of positives and negatives, depending on the asset, the location and any given stakeholder’s goals.