U.S. Hotel and Travel Industries ‘Stress Severity’ From Coronavirus Losses

Due to coronavirus, what was once at the top of the proverbial “to-do” list has made its way down to the bottom: travel.
The American Hotel and Lodging Association, the nation’s largest trade association for the hotel industry, has projected a 3.9 million job loss for the industry with the current pace of occupancy decline for the year. This economic impact is already more severe than the 9/11 and 2008 recessions combined, they said.
According to the AHLA, so far the coronavirus pandemic has been “catastrophic.” Based on current occupancy estimates, AHLA said “four million total jobs have been eliminated already or are on the verge of being lost in the next few weeks,” and that “in certain affected markets, including Seattle, San Francisco, Austin and Boston, hotel occupancy rates are already down below 20 percent and individual hotels and major operators have already shut down operations.”
To help alleviate these impacts, earlier this week top hotel ceos met with President Trump and Vice President Pence to discuss urgent assistance solutions – but for many hotels, it might already be too late. Several U.S. hotel industry ceos were in attendance, from companies such as Best Western, Choice Hotels, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group,

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