Pent-Up Demand for Small Meetings Is Heating Up
It just may be the small-meetings business that could help the beleaguered hotel industry overcome challenges presented by a raging pandemic, economic downturn and civil unrest.

It just may be the small-meetings business that could help the beleaguered hotel industry overcome challenges presented by a raging pandemic, economic downturn and civil unrest.
Americans are hitting the road again. But they're not traveling to Chicago on business or to Las Vegas and Disney World for vacations. They're going in search of vaccines.
It just may be the small meetings business that could help the beleaguered hotel industry overcome challenges presented by a raging pandemic, economic downturn and civil unrest.
A new year brings the reality of a COVID-19 vaccine closer and those dreaming of travel may soon be able to take the trips they plan for in 2021. Given the disruption to the travel industry brought on by the pandemic - leading to reductions in the amount of traveling done last year - what has happened to travel interest among Brits and Americans during that time? Throughout the course of 2020, despite restrictions and lockdowns, more than two in five Brits said they were still interested in travel (43%).
I worked as a hotel inspector and photographer for seven years at Forbes Travel Guide and Oyster.com (a TripAdvisor company). Though it sounds like a made-up job for a protagonist in a rom-com, I can assure you that inspecting and photographing hotels was very much my real life.
John Fitzpatrick has weathered multiple crises in his more than three-decade career in the hotel industry. He opened his first hotel in New York City during the Gulf War and owned three by the time 9/11 happened.
Walt Meyer is afraid of getting sick when he travels. Too many people aren't taking COVID-19 seriously, he says.
Expectations for 2021 are high. Earnings estimates are ticking upwards, the stock market continues to crest, and people talk of a "Roaring '20s" boom as Americans emerge from their COVID cocoons to spend, go out, and travel.
There could be fewer hotel real estate investment trusts in the next year or so, and public-to-private transactions are more likely than public-to-public transactions in the current environment, sources said.
2020 was a bizarre year, to say the least. We rode the waves of a pandemic, a U.S. presidential election, protests, wildfires, social change marches, travel bans, and more. And while it's easy to remember all the hardships that came with 2020 (and the noticeable lack of travel), the past year was also full of truly good news.